


On the Hook

by CharlotteCordelier



Series: Natural Children [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bisexual Bruce Wayne, Chickens, Gen, Jewish Bruce Wayne, Medical Inaccuracies, Multiracial Selina Kyle, No proofreading we die like mne, exurban homesteading
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 36,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21932968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlotteCordelier/pseuds/CharlotteCordelier
Summary: “You never would get through to the end of being a father, no matter where you stored your mind or how many steps in the series you followed. Not even if you died. Alive or dead a thousand miles distant, you were always going to be on the hook for work that was neither a procedure nor a series of steps but, rather, something that demanded your full, constant attention without necessarily calling you to do, perform, or say anything at all.”― Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue
Relationships: Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne
Series: Natural Children [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1558399
Comments: 65
Kudos: 183





	1. Day One

“You never would get through to the end of being a father, no matter where you stored your mind or how many steps in the series you followed. Not even if you died. Alive or dead a thousand miles distant, you were always going to be on the hook for work that was neither a procedure nor a series of steps but, rather, something that demanded your full, constant attention without necessarily calling you to do, perform, or say anything at all.”

―  **Michael Chabon,** _**Telegraph Avenue** _

The important thing was that Jason could breathe now. He knew that. He knew that was the more important thing. But he also couldn’t ignore the fact that he currently felt like a shit sandwich. Before, when he couldn’t breathe, when really couldn’t breathe and the air wasn’t moving in or out of him, nothing else had mattered but moving air in and out of him. 

But then the doctor and the nurse had gotten him inside and he was inhaling medicine into his lungs and it was going into his arm with an IV and now that he could breathe a little, he felt terrible. He felt nauseous and shaky from whatever was in his mask. His head hurt and he needed to cough so badly, but he was afraid to cough. Everything inside his chest felt raw and sore and twitchy, like it might close up on him again at any second. 

Maybe he also felt a little bad about lying. But his father had told him, the night the cops came for him: you ever get in trouble, you say you’re one of Bruce Wayne’s bastards. Willis had never said why, but then Willis was remanded without bail awaiting trial for what he’d done last year and Jason didn’t even know how to call him. But when he’d said it, told the doctor his real name and said he was Bruce Wayne’s kid, the doctor wasn’t even mad.

“Well,” she had paused and stared at him in the face, hard. “Huh. I can work with that. Keep breathing. I’ll be back.”

* * *

Alfred was employing his secret ingredient in the rose garden when his phone rang, Leslie’s ring. He glanced furtively towards the house, hid the small bucket in the shrubbery, and answered the phone.

“Good morning,” he said. “How--”

“Alfred,” she cut him off, sounding tense and particularly bull-headed. “I am tap-dancing around my professional and personal ethics. So I need you to listen very carefully to what I’m about to tell you. And I need you to interpret it correctly. And you can’t ask me any clarifying questions. Do you understand?”

“I do,” he said. “Please wait one moment while I return to the house so that I can make notes.” He hustled back across the lawn.

“Who else is home?” she asked.

“I believe it’s just myself. Master Bruce is attending his first day of residency. Miss Selina is in the city today. Ms. Saunders and Mr. Choi have taken the children to some sort of indoor playground, which I hope is well insured. Mr. Jordan either left before dawn or is still sleeping. I suspect the latter.”

“Good. Good.”

“Alright,” he shut the door behind him and took up pen and notepad at the kitchen table. “I am prepared.”

“No questions.”

“I understand.” The repetition was not encouraging. Neither was the silence that seemed to stretch out before she began to speak.

“I have met a boy who is claiming Bruce Wayne as his father.”

Alfred dropped his pen, cursed, and retrieved it. He could only imagine her eyes rolling, but surely they were. He held his tongue and waited.

“Bruce and the house are certified for emergency foster situations. If this young man were to be staying with you, at the time that Bruce were to contact them, I am sure DCFS would accept his placement as a fait accompli.”

Alfred wrote: fait accompli.

“Speaking as a disinterested third party, and not a physician,” she said, with heavy emphasis, “I think this would be best. For everyone. If he were to await paternity testing at the Manor. And not in his present circumstances.”

“What circumstances are those?” he couldn’t stop himself from asking. Other questions that he had, but did not ask, included, but were not limited to: Could this even be Bruce’s child? How did she find him? Why on earth wouldn’t she say more?

“I. Am. Tap. Dancing.” Her tone promised violence.

“Leslie, this house--”

“Yes, or no, Alfred.” Suddenly she sounded very tired. He thought of her face the day that she’d met her chicken and named her Mae West. He thought of waking up in the night with the crack of thunder and reaching out for her and finding nothing. There was nothing that she would ask of him thoughtlessly. Nothing that wasn’t necessary.

“Yes, yes,” he said. “Of course, yes.”

“Good.” She sighed. “Good. Send a car to the clinic in...three hours, let’s say. That should give us both enough time.”

“The clinic? Time for what?”

“Enough questions, Alf.”

“My apologies.”

“Now, you’re going to have to make some arrangements. These are totally unrelated to your prospective guest and may be considered as personal requests from me, although everything I list should go to an empty bedroom with a private bath. Are you ready?”

“Do your worst,” he said, and began to write frantically.

* * *

Hal woke up only when the full sun was shining directly on his face. He rolled away from it, opened one eye, and checked his phone on the nightstand. He had been asleep for approximately thirteen hours. It was possible that, in addition to being hungry and dirty, he had arrived at Bruce’s own personal Haunted Mansion somewhat sleep deprived. 

The bathroom, Hal’s private bathroom, was glorious. It had half a dozen showerheads, some installed directly into the marble walls. There was in floor-heating and towel rack in the wall that was actually a pipe that was heated by the steaming hot water than ran into the shower, so that your towel was always toasty warm when you were done. Alfred had apologized, sincerely, that the bathroom didn’t have a bathtub.

The shower was just as glorious in the morning as it had been the night before. Hal didn’t have any clean clothes of his own, but when he stepped back into his room, he found a brand new pair of jeans, white t-shirt, and socks on the bed. All in his size. It was possible that the Haunted Mansion also had house elves, though that was mixing his mythologies a little. He toweled off his hair and went in search of the kitchen.

The benevolent house elves had left coffee in the coffeemaker and a foil-covered pan of coffee cake with precise reheating instructions. The brew was a buttery dark roast. The coffee cake melted in his mouth. The Hallelujah Chorus played between his ears. Why the hell had Bruce ever run away to Europe?

“Ah, Mr. Jordan.” Alfred appeared in the stairwell that led up to the family bedrooms. He was wearing suit trousers and suspenders, with the cuffs of his shirt rolled up. His collar was noticeably wilting. Perspiration beaded his brow and he looked...overset. Hal felt deeply and instinctually that this could not be the normal state of affairs.

“Is everything okay?”

“Certainly, certainly.” There was a wild look in Alfred’s eyes, like a man facing down a T-90 with a service pistol.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Under normal circumstances, I would never trouble a guest.”

“Alfred, please. I promise to mooch later. Put me to work.” 

“If it’s not too inconvenient, could I prevail upon you to drive into town and pick up Dr. Thompkins and her friend?”

“Sure, of course.” Whoever the hell Dr. Thompkins and her friend were.

“I would go myself, but the mattress will arrive any minute and then if I don’t personally hand over my firstborn to Magdalena, we’ll all suffer for it. Indefinitely.”

“Should I go now?” Whoever Magdalena was, Hal did not want to meet her.

“No, no,” Alfred said, distracted. “Finish your coffee. And then if you wouldn’t mind helping me unpack a few things upstairs.”

“No problem.”

Hal gulped his coffee, poured himself another, and followed Alfred. The room they were working on was closest to the kitchen, right above where Hal judged Alfred’s own quarters to be. It was smaller than Hal’s guest room, with a smaller bath as well. The furniture didn’t match, but it was all solid wood, including a mid-century secretary and a Shaker style bed, with an ornate marble-topped nightstand that might have also been a small humidor at one time. The window looked out over the beautiful garden and greenhouse and chicken coop.

“I know,” Alfred said, despairing. He was practically wringing his hands, the poor bastard.

“This is a nice room.”

“We have a very nice bedroom set in the attic somewhere, I know we do.”

“Sure,” Hal said. “What can I help with right now, though?”

“Right you are.” The butler visibly steeled himself. “The mattress men will haul this one away, when they bring the new one. If you would unpack and set up those two, I will--”

From far off, the doorbell rang.

“Heavens,” Alfred said, and disappeared.

Hal opened the boxes, for what looked to be a hospital-grade air purifier and humidifier respectively, and began following the instructions. He had the purifier mostly assembled by the time that Alfred returned with a delivery man carrying two more boxes for an oxygen concentrator and a home nebulizer. Hal continued with the assembly while the other men concluded their business. Then he moved onto the nebulizer, noticing that Alfred was frozen, looking at the medical equipment.

“We probably need distilled water for this,” Hal said casually, fitting the filter into place.

“Of course,” Alfred said.

“I’m not gonna ask any questions, because all evidence to the contrary, I wasn’t actually raised in a barn. But I am making some conjectures and drawing some conclusions here.”

“As am I, Mr. Jordan. As am I.”

They worked together in companionable silence for another hour, by tacit agreement arranging the room to best suit an invalid. The bed was moved for the best view out of the back of the house. They positioned the medical equipment to be as unobtrusive as medical equipment could be. The mattress men did indeed arrive and carried away a perfectly good mattress to replace it with a fancy foam one, which was quickly zipped up inside some kind hermetic mattress cover. A small mountain of new pillows were also sealed into covers. Alfred brought in sheets and quilts from somewhere. They were freshly laundered and smelled like absolutely nothing. They made the bed and began to run the air purifier, which appeared to be better engineered than most cars Hal had owned.

“It’s time,” Alfred said, like he was announcing a hanging. 

“Okay.” Hal climbed to his feet. “Um. I don’t have a car.”

“I’ll give you the keys to the Land Rover.”

They made their way downstairs, which was quiet and still. Hal had never driven a Land Rover and he felt strangely jubilant compared to Alfred, who handed him the keys like at least one of them was going on a suicide mission. Hal had just gotten into the car and cautiously tapped in the address of his destination when another vehicle appeared at the far, far end of the drive. He looked back and on the porch, Alfred pulled his shoulders back and lifted his chin. Yeah, he was definitely the one facing the firing squad this time.

* * *

Some latent maternal instinct had led Leslie to hold Peter’s--Jason’s hand while he dozed on the exam table. He had just started another round on the nebulizer, hopefully the last before they headed to the Manor, and the soft machine noise had apparently lulled him to sleep. He was pinking up at last. Sweat beaded at his hairline and he held himself very carefully, but it was clear he no longer felt like he was suffocating. Leslie felt a little less like it, too.

“Doctor,” Crystal whispered from the doorway. “Leslie.”

Leslie set down Peter’s hand and stood to talk with her nurse just outside the doorway.

“Be careful,” Crystal said, “when you look at his chart.” She was holding the legal paid close to her chest.

“Why?”

“When I was looking for his inhaler, I found a report card. It had his birthdate, so I added it. And then when I was trying to get a stick, I went ahead and typed his blood. So I added that, too. I thought we might still have to call an ambulance.”

“And I shouldn’t look at this.”

“Well.” Crystal bit her lip, considering her words. “I heard your phone call. To Alfred.”

They stood in silence. Charts, in medicine, were sacred and inviolate documents.

“Is his blood type or birth date medically relevant right now?” Leslie asked after a pause.

“No.”

“What page is it on?”

“I tore it out after he said, you know, what he said. And I wrote it on the last page of the notepad. So maybe wait. Like a day.”

“Thank you for the heads up,” Leslie said. “About his chart.”

“His chart.”

In the room, Jason stirred and coughed. It sounded painful and looked pitiful. The women broke eye contact and went in to him.

* * *

  
  
The drive into Gotham was an educational one. Hal hadn’t been paying much attention yesterday, but now he consciously tried to learn the route. The Wayne estate was basically rural, or maybe Bruce just owned most of the county. Possibly both. Small houses on huge tracts of land transitioned suddenly to McMansion suburbs and strip malls. Then tiny post-war ranch houses. Then townhouses above boutiques and yoga studios. Then Gotham. It wasn’t a dirty city, not like New York, but it was extremely gray. Maybe it was the only kind of rock they had around, but not even the cheeriest awning could break up the incredible charcoal monolithic experience of the city.

The neighborhood that Hal was driving into was a little rough around the edges. Rough enough that he wished he were driving something slightly less conspicuous. He was greeted at his destination by a harried looking blonde in scrubs. She waved him over and he put the car in park. 

“Hi, I’m Crystal. I’ll wait with the car. Leslie’s going to need your help carrying him.”

“Sure,” Hal said. 

It was remarkable how many people looked at him and thought: hey, there’s a man who knows what’s going on, a person in the loop, a well-informed individual. The last time Hal had really known what was going on, he was applying to the Air Force Academy. Ever since he’d arrived in Colorado Springs, he’d simply accepted that he had no real clue what the fuck anything was about, and rolled with it. One time, he’d accidentally been at a military benefit in Whitehall and called Princess Anne ‘sir’ directly to her face. She’d laughed, asked him to refill her gin, and then pinched his bottom when he turned away to find a bartender.

Hal stepped around a bunch of broken glass and flowers and pushed through the door with the CLOSED sign. The clinic was small and worn, but clean, nicer than a lot of military places he’d been treated over the years. It wasn’t hard to follow the sound of a woman’s voice to the back, where the light in only one room was on. Inside, a woman about Alfred’s age was sitting with a little boy in dirty clothes. He looked wan and grubby and sick, with dark hair and shadowed eyes.

“Hi. I’m Hal. I’ll be your lift home today.”

“Do I know you?” the woman asked sharply. She was wearing a stethoscope around her neck and a long-sleeved t-shirt that said VACCINES CAUSE ADULTS. This must be Dr. Thompkins.

“I’m, uh, a friend of Bruce’s. He’s putting me up for a while. Alfred sent me because he’s waiting for someone named Magdalena?”

“God help him,” she muttered. “Well, I’m Leslie Thompkins and this is Jason.”

“Hi, Jason.”

Jason stared at him suspiciously and Hal noticed how shallow his breathing was under his t-shirt. The medical equipment was starting to make more sense. 

“Jason,” Leslie said. “I’m going to carry the bag with our supplies. Hal’s going to carry you.”

“If you don’t mind,” Hal added quickly.

“Whether you mind or not.” She speared Hal with a look. It felt just like he was back in the Air Force. It was almost a relief to be taking orders from a competent superior again.

“It’s fine,” the kid said, voice shot. “Whatever. Don’t forget. My bag.”

“I got it,” Leslie said, and slipped a surgical type mask over the kid’s face before he could object. She slung a grubby nylon backpack over one shoulder, then her purse, then put a milk crate full of who-knew-what onto her hip. “Come on. Don’t dawdle. I want to beat traffic.”

“You ready?” Hal approached Jason carefully, waiting for his nod. Hal remembered a lot of unpleasant things about his childhood, and one of the worst things was the pervasive fear of his own impotence. The kid on the exam table could only have looked more powerless if he was unconscious.

“Okay,” Jason said.

Hal leaned over and slipped his arms under Jason’s shoulders and knees. His spine felt knobby and there was a fine trembling running through his extremities. Hal guessed it was either fatigue or steroids, having been prescribed them a time or two himself. Jason’s head lolled back against Hal’s chest. Poor kid. He looked even more pitiful in the posh black leather of the Land Rover’s back seat, even letting Hal and Leslie fasten his seatbelt for him.

During the drive back to the Manor, Hal kept a weather eye on his passengers. Sure, he felt a little bit like he was driving Miss Daisy, but Miss Daisy didn’t have an ailing child sidekick. Leslie kept two fingers on his radial pulse almost the whole time. Jason dozed, wheezily, jerking awake every now and then to cough and wipe his eyes and forehead on his grimy shirtsleeve. If his intended bedroom was any indication, Alfred was going to incinerate that shirt.

* * *

Alfred had prepared himself, and the manor, as best he could. But the sight of Master Harold, carrying a ragdoll of a boy out of the backseat, was alarming in the extreme. The pilot was a big man, almost as big as Master Bruce, and he made the child look so slight as to be negligible. Alfred had, for the most searing years of his adult life, cared for a boy in distress of one kind or another. It felt, for a moment, like it had all been for nothing. This boy, Jason, looked barely awake, his chest rising and falling shallowly. He was dirty and pale, except for an unpleasant flush over his cheeks, visible above the mask. He looked like a truly lost boy.

“Hello, young sir,” he said formally, falling back as always upon form. “My name is Alfred. Welcome to our home.”

Jason just blinked, looking stupefied, and nodded.

“Shower?” Hal asked, both the boy and Leslie.

“Shower,” she confirmed. “Just get it started. Warm, not hot.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“The circumstances,” Alfred proffered, “were dire.”

Leslie nodded. “He needs to bathe. But I don’t want him left alone for a minute for the next forty-eight hours or so.” She stopped short, surprised as Hal turned toward the family wing. “I thought you would have put him in a guest room.”

“Picture if you will,” Alfred said dryly, “the expression upon Master Bruce’s face, were I to tell him that I had put an alleged son of his, a very ill alleged son, into a guest room in the opposite wing from where the two family physicians rest their heads.”

“I take your point.” Leslie sighed. “My main concern is that Jason is able to rest undisturbed.”

“I have already called for reinforcements,” Alfred assured her. “Selina is coming, and bringing with her another young lady who won both individual and all-around gymnastics medals in college.”

“You didn’t tell her--”

“I told her nothing, except that Dick Grayson needed to be too tired to make any trouble tonight. Kendra has arranged for Timothy to begin pacing off and staking out the cubits of the Ark in the Hebrew Bible, in anticipation of what, exactly, I’m not sure. Selina has promised to sit with Cassandra and read all of the Colonial Lass books end to end.”

“Good, good.” Leslie looked at him sideways. “And it’s American Girl, you old fart.”

“I know.” Alfred paused at the foot of the stairs and put a hand to his head, briefly gripping his forehead like he could make the thinking stop. “Is he Bruce’s?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “And right now I don’t really care.”

“Alright, then. Alright.” 

“Once more unto the breach, Alf. We few, we happy few, and all that.”

“Please don’t attempt to quote Shakespeare to me, Leslie. You know how it upsets my digestion.”

* * *

Jason, truly, had no idea what the fuck was going on here. He’d dropped Bruce Wayne’s name like a bomb, hoping to get a rise out of the doctor or a bed for the night or maybe a free inhaler. Now this dude, Hal, was carrying him upstairs and talking about how the Knights were definitely going to turn it all around this year. Jason had been born at night, but it wasn't last night. The Knights were never going to turn it around. Hal brought him into a room, a huge room, full of real furniture and natural sunlight.

Maybe Jason had died? It felt like he might die for a while there last night. Maybe this was it? But, no, now Hal was talking about how Jason had to bathe and which adult would he prefer to sit with him in the bathroom.

“Don’t care,” Jason rasped. Then he said, “You.”

“Cool,” Hal said. “I’m going to go start the water. Don’t fall off this chair.”

The chair was a rocking chair, real wood, just like everything else in the room. A bed, a fancy desk, a dresser, empty bookshelves, and some of the same breathing stuff that Dr. Thompkins had used back at the clinic. The dresser had a tv and the weird table next to the bed had a bunch of remotes. Everything was clean, although it didn’t smell like anything in particular, not even bleach. The bed was made so neatly that it looked like an ad, not a real bed someone could sleep in, even though it was turned down on one side for someone. There was a wedge type pillow there, and then more normal pillows, and the whitest sheets Jason had ever seen.

“Okay, so,” Hal said, returning. “I have determined what I hope to be the correct temperature of water. You can take the mask off, then I’m going to help you out of your clothes and sit you down in the shower. Do not stand up, for the love of God. I have been on some of the drugs you’re on right now and if you stand up too fast, it’s all over. If I fuck this up and you die, don’t worry, I’ll be next. Also, don’t worry about embarrassing me or embarrassing you. I was in the Air Force and used to do the kind of training you have to wear an adult diaper for. One time some equipment malfunctioned and I puked so hard and so long they had to hose me off on the flight deck.”

Jason gave him a thumbs up. The shower was actually awesome, even if he would have turned it up a little hotter himself. There was soap and shampoo and conditioner, all of which felt somehow better than any other shower stuff he'd used before. Sitting just outside, on the toilet, Hal began expounding on other football teams and offering suggestions on which parts of him to scrub.

“Don’t forget under your toenails,” Hal said. “I went without a shower for like two weeks in a place I can’t tell you about, actually. And that’s how I learned that you don’t want to forget your toenails. Trench foot is a real thing. Oh, and you can totally pee in the shower, too. I won’t tell. Probably want to do that before you wash your feet. Don’t forget the bottoms of your feet or the backs of your ears. That’s a story from another place I can’t tell you about.”

Jason followed his suggestions and when he was done, he reached up just enough to turn the water off. Hal was right there with an enormous towel which he used to dry Jason thoroughly. Then he helped Jason into clean pajamas with planets and comets on them and carried him all the way to that ridiculous bed. Which was apparently for him. The pillow wedge thing propped him up and then Hal put another pillow behind his head and then stepped back and judged the arrangement.

“Good enough for government work.”

“I’m staying in here?” Jason’s voice was wrecked, barely rising above a whisper.

“Hell yeah.” The apparently Air Force guy grinned. “Your shower isn’t as nice as mine, by the way, but it’s okay.”

“Here?”

“Well…” Hal’s face did something strange. “I can find you another room, different view. I’d even let you take mine, with the miracle shower.”

“No, no.” Jason looked out at the garden. Were those fruit trees? Was this Plum Creek? Who were these people?

“Okay, I’m going to send the doc back in. I’ll make sure you get a phone or something so we can text.”

“Why?” 

“Well, thanks for that hit to my ego by the by, but also because I am very useful in a crisis, in case the hovering or the kids or the butler becomes too much.”

Jason gave him yet another thumbs up. Hal was replaced by the Doc. She put a pulse thingy back on his finger and pulling the stethoscope from around her neck. She wrote a few things down on the yellow pad of paper from the clinic and took his temperature inside his ear and made him blow into some kind of test tube, which she didn’t explain.

“You look much better,” she said frankly.

“Really?” he asked hoarsely.

“Well, you smell better. Now I’m going to have to slide my hand under your shirt for part of this, okay?”

Jason gave her the old thumbs up. He wasn’t suffocating anymore, true, but he also wasn’t breathing that great. It was that kind a hiccupy inhale-exhale cycle, where his body was still using strange muscles instead of the normal breathing ones. He coughed, mostly, weakly and somehow sideways inside his lungs. But he’d rather live like this forever than go back to the way he’d felt, stumbling along the sidewalk to the clinic, wondering if anyone would be there when he made it, sitting and lying down when he realized no one was, and he was probably going to die right there.

“It really does sound better in here,” Doc said. “I don’t lie to spare anyone’s feelings.”

Jason nodded. He could believe that.

“Here are my thoughts. I want to hit the nebulizer pretty hard for the next 48 hours or so. I’m also going to give you an oral steroid, a pill, to help. The steroids can make you cranky and nauseous, but they might also make you hungry. I hope to God they make you hungry, because Alfred is going to implode if he can’t feed you soon.”

“Butler?” he rasped.

“Yeah. How do you feel about smoothies?”

“Good? No raspberries.”

“Fantastic. Okay.” She took a seat on the edge of the rocking chair, bringing her eyeline almost level with his. It looked like she had bad news. It looked like he couldn’t stay. His little pulse thingy picked up.

“I can go,” Jason said, forcing it past his vocal cords.

“Absolutely not,” she snapped back. “No, that’s not what I’m worried about.”

“What?”

“So far, what we’ve done has been mostly legal. The law is that doctors can’t treat children without their parents or guardians present, except in emergencies. That was definitely an emergency. You know, that right?”

He nodded, pushing away the feel of the sidewalk under his cheek, the tunneling of his vision.

“What we did at the clinic, we had to do, to save your life. That’s legal. The part where we moved you out here to the manor without telling anyone, that’s a little less legal. Can you tell me anything about your parents?”

“Mom’s dead.” His eyes stung and he grimaced, rubbing at them. “Sorry.”

“That’s normal, Peter. Jason, sorry. Steroids, like the stuff in the nebulizer, can make you more emotional than usual. Oh don’t do that,” she said, when he tried to wipe his face on his clean pajama sleeve. She handed him a little folded square of very soft fabric.

“What?”

“That is a handkerchief because the Alfred, the butler, my beau, is secretly a time-traveler.”

Jason didn’t laugh, but he smiled while he wiped his face.

“What about your dad?”

“Jail.” There went his smile.

“Do you know if he kept any of his parental rights?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay, we’ll look into it. So, you’re here now, which is not really all that legal. And I’d like to keep giving you medicine, but because there’s no parent or guardian here, that’s pretty illegal. So here’s the plan I’m proposing, which I hope will keep me out of an ethics review and keep you away from Gotham DCFS.”

“Anything,” Jason said, “but that.”

* * *

Hal mostly stumbled into the kitchen. He’d seen a lot of terrible shit happen to people, especially kids, over the years. This was a natural consequence of being sent places that NATO thought you should go and some places NATO thought no one should go. But he’d never carried and bathed and dressed those kids before.

“I need a drink,” he announced. 

“Alas, Master Harold, I am not permitted to serve alcohol before cocktail hour, due to an incident last week involving a particularly delightful tawny port,” Alfred said mournfully, “not until my probationary period is over.”

“That’s fine. I don’t really drink. I just kind of need one.” Hal sat down at the sturdy, scarred kitchen table and put his head in his hands. “That kid is skin and bones. And he hadn’t had a real shower in at least a month. I don’t know if he has pneumonia or what, but it sounds…”

“I know,” Alfred said, and with a vengeful thwack he quartered the second of three chickens. They were good sized chickens, almost the same size as...

“Oh God,” Hal said. “That’s not. Those aren’t.”

“No! No, no, no,” Alfred rushed to reassure him. “All my ladies are present and accounted for.”

Hal exhaled in sudden relief, making the older man chuckle.

“Smoothies are a go,” Leslie said, climbing down the stairs. “He doesn’t like raspberries.”

“Hmm...perhaps mango…” Alfred washed his hands. “Yes, mango, and I have some plain yogurt, and I have some homemade vanilla extract. Perhaps a spring of mint..”

Hal’s stomach grumbled.

“Good heavens,” Alfred turned. “You left without breakfast.”

“There was coffee cake!” Hal pointed out, but Alfred was already off and running.

“Don’t fight it,” Leslie advised. “This is his love language. He’s probably already trying to figure out if he can grow mango trees in the greenhouse.”

“Nobody in the house half-asses anything, do they.”

“Not even a little.”

The smoothie that Hal was presented with looked like something from those fancy food magazines he only ever saw at commercial airports. It was in a pint glass, garnished with mint that he could actually smell, and a straw. It tasted like...vacation. Hal looked up at Alfred in wonder.

“It’s mostly frozen mango, but also some fresh banana, whole fat yoghurt, just a touch of the vanilla extract, and some coconut milk for richness.”

“You should take one up to Jason,” Leslie said, in the laid back tones of an order in disguise.

“I’m sure--”

“Alf.”

Hal studied his delicious smoothie very carefully, closing his ears to whatever occult negotiation was taking place in the air of the kitchen. He didn’t look up until Alfred had departed with Jason’s smoothie. That was what happened when you got voluntold by your CO. 

* * *

The boy was lying quietly with his eyes closed when Alfred espied him from the hallway. For a moment, he thought he might be able to leave the smoothie and skulk away like the coward he was. But Jason’s eyes flew open as soon as he crossed the threshold.

“I have your smoothie, Master Jason.” He approached and handed the smoothie off, noting that his handkerchief was already being put to good use.

“Thanks.” It sounded like he’d been swallowing sand, the poor boy. 

“I’m making chicken soup for dinner, but I haven’t prepared any side dishes, if you’d like to make a request.”

“Chicken soup with the stars?” he asked, a little piece of hope momentarily showing behind his eyes.

“Of course,” Alfred said at once. Stars. He could make stars. Surely Leslie or Hal would know what that meant. 

Jason took a sip of the smoothie and his eyes widened. He held it away from himself and stared at it.

“I have strawberries,” Alfred said quickly. “Frozen from last year’s bumper crop. And blueberries, too, if this one is not to your taste.”

“It’s really good,” Jason said, and then he started crying. “Sorry. Sorry. The steroids.”

“Of course.” Alfred knew how steroids worked and he knew also how the pride of young men worked. He put a firm hand on Jason’s shoulder. “Now, I have to be getting on with dinner. Who would you like me to send up to sit with you: Dr. Thompkins or Master Harold.”

“Uh. Hal?”

“Very good.” It was July, but Alfred took a few moments to make sure that there was an additional blanket over Jason’s feet and a fresh glass of water at his bedside.

“Thanks,” the boy whispered.

“It is my pleasure. Truly.”

Alfred escaped to the chicken and despatched Hal upstairs, with the promise of another smoothie later. Then he turned to Leslie and with great gravity asked her:

“Where can I procure stars for our chicken soup?”

* * *

By the time he was released from work at the hospital, around eight pm, Bruce had the suspicion that something had gone wrong at home. Unlike his first day of work, there was no avalanche of texts or, in Selina’s case, a truly lascivious voice mail. Bruce could only conclude that everyone was occupied. And the only thing that would occupy everyone would be a some kind of crisis at home. He hadn’t been paged or pulled out of rounds, so it must be relatively minor. He let that anxiety simmer on the back burner while he drove home.

All the other residents were clearly feeling one another out for competitive weak spots. Bruce wasn’t interested because, frankly, he knew he was smart enough not to have to worry about it. Expending energy on those kinds of games was counterproductive when you could simply be performing better. For now, though, he was keeping his profile low. As low as possible. He sat with his peers when they ate and walked with them when they had a common destination. But he didn’t initiate conversation and he said absolutely nothing about his family, even when others were clearly fishing. It might be a lonely four years, but it wasn’t as though he lacked for human contact at home.

He parked around back, in the black Lexus sedan that had seemed circumspect when he left early that morning. That was before he’d parked it with all the other residents’ beaters and found out that they all knew who he was and didn’t particularly like him. That was okay, Bruce told himself. He had time to win them over. Or at least convince them he wasn’t a complete jackass. The atmosphere inside the house was strangely quiet. It smelled delicious, like Alfred’s chicken soup. He paused in the back hall. Chicken soup. Was someone not feeling well? Was one of the kids unwell? Had he missed it because he was at work? 

“We’re in here!” Leslie called from the kitchen.

He followed her voice to find Alfred, Leslie, and Selina sitting at the kitchen table. They were sharing a bottle of Glendronach. There was a fourth glass, which Leslie poured two fingers into and slid towards an empty chair. Bruce sat down cautiously. His stomach churned. He’d eaten potato chips for lunch.

“I smell chicken soup,” he said cautiously. “Is someone sick?”

“We’ll get to that,” Leslie said.

“Where are the kids?”

“Kate, Harley, and Ryan took them to see  _ The Hangover _ ,” Selina said. “Or the new  _ Ice Age _ . I forget which.”

“Who’s Harley?”

“My pilates teacher. She was a champion gymnast in college and she spent the afternoon practicing walkovers with Dickie while Kendra did something involving Noah's Ark with Tim and I was with Cass reading all of Rebecca and Ivy’s stories. Which, frankly, were not bad literature.”

“So,” Bruce sipped his whiskey. Everyone else sipped their whiskey. “What’s with the soup?”

Leslie explained, like she was making report. Bruce tried very hard not to react visibly. It was harder than usual. He drank more whiskey. So. There was a strange child upstairs, who might or might not be another of his progeny, who no one had told him about, even though it was clear that this project had taken the better part of the day, another paternity test had been dropped into the mail, and he could only hear the other pathology residents’ voices: _How many more do you think they’re are out there? Five? Ten? He’s going to have to reopen that orphanage._

“I want to see him,” he said, when the explaining was over. 

“Okay,” Leslie said. “Hal’s with him now.”

“Hal?”

“A useful man in a tight spot,” Alfred said. It was the first he had spoken. “I will walk up with you.”

They stopped at the top of the stairs. Alfred obviously had something to say. It was paining him to have to say it. Bruce, who had already had a long day without the addition of an alleged child, waited without a great deal of sympathy.

“It was my decision,” Alfred said at last. “To have him moved here. And I’m sorry if that has made things more difficult for you. Very sorry. I’ll be downstairs.”

Bruce opened the door, which had obviously been oiled recently. The odds and ends of the family rooms had been put together in a credible approximation of a bedroom. Hal was indeed in a chair beside the door, reading a battered paperback by the light of a floor lamp. He gave Bruce a silent wave, dog-eared his page like a reprobate, and set aside the book.  _ A Cold Dish _ by Craig Johnson. He rose and silently handed Bruce a thin dossier. At first, Bruce thought it was something that had been prepared in Excel. But when he angled it into the light, he could see it was tables and figures of oxygen saturation and temperature and more prepared on ordinary white graph paper with an ordinary pencil. There was graphite under Hal’s fingernails. Bruce skimmed through the information and then put it in his back pocket for later. He approached the bed cautiously, hoping he remembered where the slightly squeaky floorboards were.

It wasn’t much past midsummer, so twilight still lingered, illuminating the figure in the bed. The boy was turned slightly sideways on his triangular wedge, an excellent tool to help him stay upright and ease his breathing. He was wearing dark pajamas, but Bruce could see how thin the boy was, relative even to Tim, who now appeared slight, rather than starved. And while his breath wasn’t labored, it wasn’t easy either. He still had a small pulse-ox device on his finger, which read SpO2-96 112bpm. Bruce frowned and retreated back to the light to look at Hal’s handiwork more closely. 

Then he went back downstairs. The meeting at the kitchen table was still in session, but everyone was on the next round of whiskey and there was a bowl of chicken soup waiting at his chair. It had little pasta stars in it, which was new. Bruce frowned at them, but proceeded with dinner. It was, as Alfred’s comfort foods always were, perfection.

“Tell me,” Bruce said.

“From what I can gather,” Leslie said, “he was diagnosed with asthma at some point in the past. Probably mild, well-controlled. Never used his rescue inhaler much, because he didn’t like the taste.”

Bruce grunted in disapproval. Non-compliance.

“Yeah. Anyway, at some point in the last year, he became homeless. He started sleeping in whatever cockroach infested, filthy, unventilated squat he found. He got a cold and now it’s bronchitis. Last night, the thunderstorm. This morning, I thought he might die on my doorstep.” She paused to drink. “He’s responding well to the protocol.”

“Where are his parents?”

“I honestly have no idea.”

“You haven’t called DCFS.”

“No.”

“You want him to stay here.” Bruce kept his voice as steady as he could. Somewhere under his fatigue and his hunger, something slick and miserable was roiling. Resentment, maybe.

“I hope you’ll let him be placed here. Temporarily.” 

“Do you know his birthdate? His blood type?”

“I haven’t seen a birthdate and I haven’t typed his blood.” Leslie drank again. “But I swabbed his cheeks and sent it off to the lab. We’ll have it back in a week.” 

“A week,” Bruce said, suppressing the ugly feeling. “I’ll give you and him a week.”

He ate his dinner in silence.


	2. Day Two

Bruce woke near dawn with his alarm. He was alone in bed. He’d known he would be, but he didn’t like the way it felt. The night before, Selina had set her own alarm for the middle of the night, telling him that it was her turn to sit up with Jason.

“You don’t have to,” he’d said.

“I don’t have to do anything. Including sleeping here,” she’d replied, arching one eyebrow. That eyebrow was a principle danger sign.

“Right.” He’d kept his tone neutral. It had been one of the times when he wasn’t certain what he’d said wrong, but there was no doubt that he had.

“They’re doing the right thing,” Selina had said. She’d sounded impatient with him, or maybe with everyone else. It was always hard to tell with Selina. Or maybe it was just him. “You just have to let them.”

“That doesn’t really help me right now.” This was one of his First Line Phrases, as he thought of them. Selina had taught it to him in France after he had offered some very relevant, very correct advice to her, about a fraught situation with a booker in Lyons. His guidance was absolutely sound, but the look she had given him was both vituperative and disappointed, and then she’d said it: that doesn’t help me right now. The message had been received.

“Well, then,” Selina sighed. “Shut up and go to sleep.” 

Bruce snorted and did as he was told. It wasn’t bad advice. He didn’t sleep particularly well, but he didn’t have any dreams either. He showered, dressed, and went downstairs. Instead of his green drink, there was a note on the counter informing him that the blender pitcher was in the fridge, all the ingredients were there, and all he had to do was put it on the base and hit the smoothie button. This irked him, for no justifiable reason.

“That doesn’t help me right now,” he muttered, pouring the green and healthful glop into the waiting travel thermos. In the garage, he thought about switching cars. But first of all, he wasn’t sure he owned anything lower profile. And second, the other pathology residents already knew what they thought of him. Switching cars was pointless. He climbed into the sedan and swung the door shut, as hard as he could. It closed with a very expensive snikt.

“That doesn’t help me right now,” he said, as though his perfectly functioning luxury automobile were part of the problem. 

Bruce put on NPR and let his mind wander a little as he drove into town. One of the therapists that Alfred had made him see, a year after his parents died and a week after he’d beaned the rabbi in the head with a siddur, had told him that sometimes it was important to sit with an unpleasant feeling and interrogate it. The therapist had said he could picture it as a lump of coal or a piece of slime or a snake or even just regular dirt, whatever it most felt like.

“This is dumb,” tiny, raging Bruce had said.

“Sure,” the therapist had said, unfazed. “But doesn’t that mean you have nothing to lose by trying?”

So Bruce had sat there, holding his empty palm out, hating it, not imagining anything in it.

“What do you want to know about it?”

“I don’t care about it. I just want it to go away.”

“Absolutely, absolutely, very understandable, but sometimes you have to convince something to go away. Or offer it a bribe to go away. And you won’t know how to get rid of it unless you find out what it wants. It may not be rational. It may not be nice. But you need to know, if you want it to leave.”

“Fine. What do you want?” Bruce had asked his stupid, empty, worthless palm.

“That,” the therapist nodded, “is an excellent question.”

Now, driving into work, Bruce imagined a gallbladder on his dash. They were small and snail like and pumped bile into people. Bruce imagined a gallbladder inflamed, furious with its host. Perfect. Now that he was older, that he had gone through the necessary psych externships in Paris, he knew what his old therapist was about. Sometimes, our internal workings were a mystery to us. When these workings were physical in nature, they could be tested for: labs, biopsies, clinical signs. That was pathology. When these workings were emotional or mental or psychological, pathology could fail you. All you could do was make-believe a gallbladder on your luxury leather dashboard and hope that by externalizing the mystery, the mystery would open itself up to you. 

Bruce preferred autopsies.

“What do you want?” he asked the gallbladder, out loud. Then he waited for a response. Sometimes it took a while, like the first time Selina had left dirty dishes in his sink and it made him unexpectedly happy and he had to sit around and wait to figure out what and why. Sometimes, it took weeks, like how he hadn’t realized until February that while he liked all the changes Alfred had made to the grounds, even the damn chickens, he was also still a little bit mad that the house didn’t look exactly the same as when he had left. 

His imaginary gallbladder was silent, but still pumping imaginary bile, which was also definitely really in Bruce’s esophagus right now. So. He was angry. He did know know who he was angry at, what he was angry about, or why he hated being angry so much at this particular moment. There were no clues. He did not know how to proceed.

“That doesn’t help me right now!” Bruce yelled.

* * *

The first, second, and third things Jason noticed when he woke up was that he could breathe. He’d been so jittery after the nebulizer last night, he thought he’d never fall asleep. But then Hal the Air Force guy had just started reading his book aloud. He wasn’t very good at it, and Jason didn’t even like the book, but something about it and the hum of the humidifier and the cool air… Jason hadn’t slept so hard or so long since before his dad went away. He blinked, rubbed the crust from his eyes with the super soft sleeve of his pajamas, and rolled over.

“Morning, kid,” said the lady in the chair. She must have swapped with Hal at some point and Jason had missed it. She was really pretty, with dark skin and lots of skinny braids in her hair. “I’m Selina.”

“Hi,” he said. His voice was not back. It sounded like he was trying to whisper. Trying to push himself to a more upright position was not pleasant. All the muscles in his chest and shoulders and back, even his armpit muscles, ached and burned with the movement. His face must have given him away.

“Leslie told me you’d be sore,” Selina said. “Once you’ve had your smoothie, I can give you something for it. Then you have the nebulizer and then you have breakfast, made to order, by the gentleman’s gentleman.” It sounded like she was reciting something from memory.

“Okay.” Jason thought, tentatively, about food and decided it was doable. “I gotta…” He flushed, looking at the bathroom door. Why couldn’t it have been Hal for this part?

“Sure,” Selina said. She rose and helped him out of bed and made him put on some very warm slippers even though he was only going like a couple yards. Once she saw that he was reasonably steady on his feet, she walked him to the bathroom and let him shut the door and pee in private. When he was done and he’d washed his hands and everything, she shadowed him back to the bed and helped him back in. She frowned at the blankets while she tucked them in more firmly.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Any time. I’m going to go get your smoothie, okay?”

This morning, the smoothie tasted like a dreamsicle. It was maybe even better than the chicken soup from last night, which had tasted nothing like the chicken and stars he knew, but was so much...more. Selina gave him a couple pills and then fixed up the nebulizer for him. Jason already hated the nebulizer, even if it had saved his life. 

“Don’t worry. Leslie will switch you to an inhaler in a day or two.” She was apparently also a mind-reader. While Jason did his chemical thing with the nebulizer, she held up a few DVD cases for his approval. He pointed at the one he wanted and she turned it towards her. “Uh. I’m not sure that this is supposed a kids one.”

Jason rolled his eyes as dramatically as he could. It was good enough to make her laugh. She put the DVD in and he relaxed back a little onto his pillows, side muscles and neck muscles complaining too. It wasn’t actually a show he’d seen before, but he liked the opening. It was dark. He watched carefully. 

“Morning, Starbuck! What do you hear?” asked a grizzled old man.

“Nothing but the rain!” said a kinda tomboyish woman, who was jogging through octagonal corridors.

“I don’t understand this show,” Selina said. “Are they in space? Are they not in space?”

“Shhh,” Jason said, and leaned forward.

“Kids these days.”

* * *

Cassandra wasn’t sure if she was naturally more observant than her brothers, or if some facet of boy biology made them particularly slow in some cases. Maybe it was both. It had been clear to her since the night before that there was a secret the adults were keeping. They had never gone to see a movie that ended after bedtime before. And Hal had bought them all candy and popcorn, which her mother had always said would rot her teeth and make them fall out of her head. So Cassandra had sipped her mint tea and watched Kendra and Hal instead of the movie.

She had woken up with nightmares again, which was disappointing. So she had climbed out of her very fancy bed, went to look at her her butsudan for a while. Grandfather had brought her a special table from the attic, made of a dark wood with lots of of plants carved into it. It was beautiful, and sturdy. He brought it down especially for the butsudan, for her. Carefully, Cassandra opened the red and black lacquered doors of the cabinet. Inside, the walls were lined with polished brass. There was a large space where the Amitabha Buddha sat. He was made of wood and gold leaf, lovingly carved to sit in lotus pose, his hands in vitarka mudra, one upraised. Under the Buddha were several drawers, also black lacquered and with lotuses in gold leaf. Carefully, Cassandra opened one of the drawers and extracted her mother’s aikido black belt. She wound it around her small hand and held it, allowing herself to feel the wave of sadness. It was always there, but most of the time she could ignore it and go on. Not tonight, though. After a while holding the belt, she re-rolled it and put it back into the drawer. 

_ Sorry _ , she signed to the butsudan and Amitabha.  _ Sorry _ . She was sorry she was sad, sorry that she wasn’t more grateful, sorry that she had so much to be grateful for. It wasn’t fair, she thought, wiping hot tears from her face, that she should be here with these nice people, and her mother had disappeared into a mountain. She knew the thought was childish.  _ Sorry _ . Once she had stopped crying, she crawled back into her bed and re-made it with Ivy and Rebecca and her lavender teddy bears all around her, so she could at least lay quietly until dawn. When the sun was up, Selina came in to check on her. She sat on Cass’s huge bed. 

“Couldn’t sleep, kitten?” Selina asked quietly. She wasn’t a mom type person. Cass could always tell the mom type people, like Mr. Bai. Alfred. Her mother, but only with her, not with anyone else. Selina was more like Mrs. Bai, who had sat with her quietly in that big hotel room in Hong Kong, but never lied to her or promised her that everything would be alright.

_ No. _

“Go ahead and go back to bed, then. I’ll tell Alfred.” Selina did like her, though. She snuck Cass Japanese candy and told her all kinds of secrets about father and grandfather. Cass wasn’t afraid to ask her questions or for favors.

_ Sorry _ .

“No sorries,” Selina said firmly, and meant it. “Do you want a hug?”

Cass shook her head, then pointed to her own forehead.

“Okay.” Selina looked a little surprised, but she leaned over and kissed her at the exact spot she had indicated. “Go back to sleep now. I’ll make sure no one bothers you.”

Selina knew Cassandra slept better when the sun was out. When she opened her eyes again, it was certainly past time for breakfast. She was walking to the kitchen to look for grandfather when she realized that the secret the adults were keeping was upstairs in the hall the whole time. Moving very carefully, she opened the door and slipped into the room that had been empty before. There was a boy on the bed. He was very thin and he was asleep. There was half a tray of food on the table beside him and some slow-moving sport on the TV.

Cassandra considered her options, but not for very long. She slipped inside, shut the door behind her, and finished his breakfast. Patting her lips with a napkin, she considered the large patch of sunshine, unoccupied, making its way across the boy’s bed. The French toast had been delicious and so had the chocolate milk. And now she was drowsy and...there was that sunny spot.

She climbed onto the mattress, pulled one of the many spare blankets over herself, and went to sleep.

* * *

Alfred had finished his salve and he was particularly proud of it. The arnica had been grown in his greenhouse and dried there. He’d had the notion to start experimenting with home remedies after making his own fresh mint tea. So he’d put the arnica in a jar with some jojoba oil and a little beeswax and set it inside the slow-cooker to infuse itself. And now he had an excellent arnica salve, for the young Mr. Todd’s stiff muscles. He wondered if valerian would work for Miss Cassandra. He was concerned about her difficulties with sleeping. Leslie said that it was best to give it time, that it was normal. But it brought up unpleasant memories for Alfred of the days after Thomas and Martha had died, when Bruce was a sleepless shadow of a child. Alfred had hardly been able to sleep, either, after he’d found Bruce in the kitchen at midnight, sitting on the floor surrounded by broken glass.

Some of the store bought tea would have to do for now, although he found that he was beginning to turn his nose up at all things store bought. Maybe Leslie was right and he was becoming some sort of homegrown snob. At least his salve was ready, he thought, as he carried it up the stairs. It was rather a surprise to find that Mr. Todd wasn’t alone, that Miss Cassandra was fast asleep at the foot of his bed, and the boy didn’t look in the least put out. He was sitting up, reading a novel that looked too mature for him, and only shrugged when Alfred entered and approached the bed. Cassandra’s face was slack and she was drooling on the bedspread. Alfred sighed. He held out the cream and mimed its proper application.

Jason gave him a thumbs up and returned to his book. Cassandra slept on. They seemed...settled. Alfred reached out, slowly so as not to startle and set his hand on Jason’s shoulder. Just a touch. The boy looked at him and frowned, confused. Not alarmed, but mistrustful.

Alfred smiled and removed his hand. He closed the door carefully behind him and went down to the kitchen and sat at the table, feeling particularly aged. Valerian and and arnica were not enough. They were the useless fancies of a doddering old fool. Perhaps he could tipple before Leslie arrived. No, he’d certainly be found out. He was incapable even of that small deception.

* * *

The sunlight was soft and forgiving on Hal’s face. He’d slept in again. Had he ever slept this well? Did all rich people have mattresses like this? No wonder they didn’t want to share with the great unwashed. Hal would punch a teamster for this mattress. He stretched, showered (and yes, jacked off, fine), shaved, and put on his own clothes, which had been laundered and apparently ironed. His Academy t-shirt had never been so sharp. Whistling the USAF fight song, he half-jogged into the kitchen, poured himself a copy, and sat down at the table with Alfred. Hal stopped whistling. Alfred looked like he was reading his own obituary.

“Who died?” Hal asked. 

“Oh. This is a more diffuse despair.”

“Gotcha.” Hal turned the stoneware mug in his hand in silence for a moment. “You know, diffuse despair is exactly why I resisted promotion.”

“As I recall,” Alfred said tartly, “armed service precludes resistance to promotion.”

“Did you know,” Hal said conversationally, “that you can piss on a styrofoam plate, freeze it, remove the piss-puck from the plate, and then slide the puck under a three star General’s door?”

“My God,” Alfred said, disgusted. “I can’t believe you lived long enough to be discharged.”

“I assure you, you are not the only one.” Hal sipped his coffee. “So I was thinking I might need to borrow a car today, head into town and find an employment office.”

“Absolutely not.” He looked horrified. “No indeed. It isn’t to be thought of, much less spoken aloud.”

That was...not the response Hal had expected.

“Now.” He stood. “What would you like in your omelette this morning?”

“Alfred. I can’t stay here forever doing nothing.”

“You are not doing nothing.” He sounded genuinely put out, and began pulling out ingredients for a Denver omelette, but with smoked turkey instead of ham.

“Did I tell you I wanted a Denver omelette?”

“You are not doing nothing,” Alfred insisted, chopping bell peppers.

“Seriously, did I say Denver omelette?”

“It was all over your face.”

“What even.” 

“Have some more coffee.” Alfred adroitly topped off his cup.

Hal drank some more coffee. “Hey, wait, I was trying to tell you I need to get a job.”

“At the moment, you are indispensable to the household and I cannot allow it.”

“Cannot allow--Alfred, forgive me, but what the actual fuck?”

“Perhaps in a few weeks.”

“Alfred. I can’t--”

“Master Harold.” Alfred’s spoke in the tone of command. It was enough to silence and still him. “We’ll revisit this conversation in a fortnight.” He was cracking eggs now and whisking them. “Please consider how you would like to entertain the children this afternoon.”

“What just happened?” he asked aloud.

“Drink your coffee before it gets cold.”

That afternoon, Hal decided he was going to hang out with Bruce’s weird kids and talk about the only thing he really ever understood: flying. He decided to start with kites, using parts he mostly found laying around the house and behind the glass conservatory, which was starting to fill up with plants. Whistling to himself, he sat in the shade of a tree and listened to the chickens and set out appropriate kite parts for assembly. Alfred brought him a large thermos of iced tea with mint and sunscreen, which he had to apply to the butler’s satisfaction before being left in peace again.

Ryan Choi brought the boys back first. According to Alfred, they were doing very well with Victor and it was possible Dick might be able to attend school with at least one sibling in the fall after all. Timothy was now building circuits and was, again according to Alfred, asking very metaphysical questions about electricity. Kendra returned with Cass next. Hal joined all of them for lunch, which was some kind of pasta salad with vegetables that tasted so good they had to be from the garden. Honestly, Hal hadn’t known that peas were supposed to taste like their own thing, but apparently they were.

Kite-flying did not go precisely as planned. No one cried, but Hal wasn’t sure that it was a really educational experience for anyone but him. As soon as Dick’s kite was assembled, he bolted, never letting enough string out, so that the kite functioned like a speed chute. At least, Hal consoled himself, Dick would probably wear himself out that way. Cass listened impassively to Hal’s explanations and, apparently without effort, began flying her kite like some kind of professional.

“But what is lift?” Tim asked, tearing Hal’s attention back to him.

“It’s the force that acts on a kite, or the wing of a plane, or the outside of a sail on a boat that’s pointed into the wind.”

“But how does it work?”

“Uh,” Hal looked down, surprised and a little flat-footed. “It’s kind of complicated.”

Tim just nodded expectantly.

“Yeah, okay.” Hal scratched the back of his head. “Just stop me if I’m going too fast or too slow.”

“I will,” Tim said solemnly.

“Right. Well. You know the whole solid-liquid-gas thing? So, it turns out that liquids and gases have a lot more in common. We can kind of predict their behavior with the same rules. Like...uh...like how bikes and cars both have to follow the same traffic laws?”

“It’s! So! Heavy!” Dick yelled, shrieking wildly as he charged towards the distant treeline, his kite trailing behind him, pulling him backwards as hard as it could.

* * *

East Gotham Community College wasn’t the most soulless set of buildings Selina had ever seen, she’d been to some former Sovier satellites after all, but it was pretty bad. Big block buildings made of poured concrete, with landscaped shrubs ruthlessly trimmed to echo the rectangular shape. The benches were long low blocks. The trash cans were tall sturdy blocks. It was like the world’s most unappealing LEGO set. She set her jaw, slung the sturdy black messenger bag over her shoulder, and commanded her feet to move. They did not move.

She could do this. She could do a few classes here, get into the swing of things. After much internal debate, she’d picked subjects that she was at least interested in to try and keep it as painless as possible: Art History 101 and Beginning ASL. Tonight was Art History. She could always bail if she had to. Unconsciously, she turned her bat ring round and round with the thumb of her right hand. She was wearing black motorcycle boots, black skinny jeans, and a charcoal gray t-shirt with the message ABUSE OF POWER COMES AS NO SURPRISE lettered across the front.

In her back, her phone buzzed with an incoming text. Bruce. She pulled it out and saw that it wasn’t Bruce, it was Harley. Of course. Bruce was busy. And also she still hadn’t told anyone at the manor that she she had finished her GED or signed up for class at EGCC.

Harley’s text read: U is kind. U is smart. U is important.

She quickly typed back: That book is fucking racist and you know it.

Harley: See how smart u is?

Selina rolled her eyes and put her phone on mute. But then she put her chin up, settled her shoulder blades down her back, and walked into the featureless institutional buildings like she owned them. When her class was over, she wasn’t sure how she felt. It had been almost a decade since she’d sat in a classroom, but the frustration was very familiar. Selina was either frustrated that she already knew what the instructor was teaching, or she was frustrated that she didn’t know.

Speaking of frustrations. She pulled out her phone.

* * *

“Wayne,” he answered, because it was always how he answered the phone, even when it was Selina.

“Did you talk to him today?” Selina asked without preamble. There was noise in the background of the call, like she was outside somewhere, on the street. It was late, late enough that Bruce was on his way home well after the kids’ bedtime. 

“Where are you?”

“My question first.”

“I just left the hospital five minutes ago.”

Selina made a noise that she had probably learned from Alfred. And wasn’t that just what he needed. More Alfred noises.

“What do you want me to say?” 

“Bruce,” she sighed. “I don’t want you to say anything. We don’t play those games, remember?”

“Yes,” he admitted. He felt like he was about a million years old. “I’m tired. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. Are your co-workers still being shitheels?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling and sounding rather neutral about it. “It is what it is.”

“If you let us, I’m pretty sure Hal and I could teach them a lesson. He seems like a man who knows how to piss in someone’s shoes.”

“Don’t tell Hal. Or Alfred, for all love.”

“Fine.” She really did sound put out, which was...sweet. Bruce had never had anyone willing to fill his enemies’ shoes with urine before. It was remarkably touching.

“I just wish.” He stopped for a moment, trying to locate the right words. “I wish I could fit in a little better with them. Be a little more...normal.”

“Bruce, what do you think that normal people have, that we don’t have?”

He didn’t have an answer for that.


	3. Day Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I went on vacay and then I had to work a shitton to catch up from vacay.

The social worker that DCFS sent over was an improbably young woman named Jesse Chambers. She had a blonde braid and the wiry look of a distance runner under her cheap pantsuit, and Alfred quickly spotted the ultra-marathoner bumper stickers on her somewhat battered coupe. A disciplined woman, then, and a proud one. She would be conscientious and scrupulous. This could work in their favor.

Alfred had, at Leslie’s suggestion, dressed down in pressed khakis and a blue oxford shirt with a tie of soft salmon silk. He felt a little absurd, working in his shirtsleeves, without even a sweater vest or sport coat. But Leslie had been insistent. She had also seemed rather adamant that he unbutton his cuffs and roll them up to expose his forearms, but there he drew the line. A man needed to maintain some standards.

“Good morning,” he said warmly, extending his hand.

“Hello,” she said. “You must be Mr. Pennyworth.”

“Please, call me Alfred.” He led her into the kitchen, where Master Bruce and Leslie were waiting. He served them coffee and hovered just outside the doorway to the front hall. Ms. Chambers asked some routine questions about the home, who lived there, etc. Then she got to the meat of the thing.

“How exactly did Jason come to be staying with you, without the involvement of DCFS?”

“That was my doing,” Leslie said, in a warm but professional tone. “Once I determined that he was responding well to treatment, and he disclosed who he believed his father was, I decided that it would be better to avoid the hospital.”

“Better for who?” Jesse asked sharply.

“For Jason,” Leslie said firmly. “I was a hospitalist for a long time. It can be very hard on kids without family, kids in the system. And, frankly, I was pretty sure he’d bolt as soon as he could walk, DCFS or no DCFS. I was afraid he’d end up back on my doorstep again. And that I might not be there in time.”

“You don’t think very highly of DCFS,” Jesse observed.

“I was a hospitalist for a long time,” she repeated. “No system is perfect, I know that. And I’m sure things have changed since I moved into a community based practice.”

“That wasn’t really an answer.”

“Forgive me,” Bruce said, speaking for the first time. “I hate to rush our interview, but--”

“But you are due at Gotham General.” Ms. Chambers consulted her notes again. “I’ll keep our questions brief. I know you’re approved for emergency placements, so really I just want to check on how things are going, now that you’re parenting.”

“I’m lucky, very lucky, to have help.” Bruce looked down at his coffee. “I couldn’t do this alone. I know that.”

“But how do you feel that you’re doing?” she pushed the point.

“I’m trying.” He swallowed. “I never expected any of this, you know. I am doing the best I can.”

“Your best seems very good,” Jesse said, matter of fact. “The reports from Timothy and Richard’s case workers are glowing. They mention that Cassandra is adjusting very well also. All of the official paperwork is moving very quickly.”

Alfred felt himself relax a little internally, even if it Bruce seemed to be holding himself even straighter. Ms. Chambers gave a little smile, stood, and offered Bruce her hand. He took it gratefully and they made perfectly civil conversation. Alfred rose and walked with Bruce to the garage.

“That’s good news,” Alfred said. “Very good news.”

“Yes,” Bruce said. “I’m going to be late.”

Alfred wanted to say something, words of support or encouragement. But nothing came. Perhaps what he really wanted was to take Bruce by the shoulders and shake him until an emotion fell out. The wisdom of his years, thankfully, prevented him. So Bruce left the Manor without further conversation.

* * *

Jason felt better even than he had yesterday, but he still thought he might throw up. The last time he’d seen any of Gotham’s public servants face to face, they were carrying his mother’s body out of their cluttered apartment. They probably would have taken Jason with them, except he kicked out the cheap vinyl bathroom window above the toilet and wriggled through it and onto the fire escape. That had been March. He’d been dodging what his parents had always called ‘fucking do-gooders’ ever since then. It was almost easier to do it alone, than to have to worry about his mom, but the feeling of not having a home was worse. A home, or a bed, or a meal, or a mom.

Alfred and Leslie had both talked to him, separately and together. They had explained the system and how it worked and all of it only made Jason more anxious until Leslie had put her hand down on his knee and said:

“It’s the money, Jason. Bruce has it. We will use it. If nothing else works, the money will keep you here.”

“You have that much?” he’d whispered.

“And more,” she had promised.

It didn’t make Jason feel totally confident, but it did make him feel less like puking on his new swanky bed. He shuffled and re-shuffled a deck of cards that Selina had brought him the day before. He kept dealing a round of solitaire, turning the cards over, and then being too anxious to play it. Eventually he gave up and just shuffled. Selina had promised to teach him some fancier shuffles and tricks. That would be nice.

A figure appeared in the doorway and he startled. It was the little girl from the day before and today she was wearing a grown up sized argyle sweater like a dress, with little purple socks that had somehow sprouted more lace. Alfred had told him her name was Cass, and that she was Bruce’s daughter. And that she didn’t talk, but she signed. Jason gave her a little wave and she waved back. She pointed towards the stairway and gave him a thumbs up. She wasn’t smiling, but it still made him feel better. She disappeared and a strange adult appeared. The lady from DCFS.

The social worker didn’t look like a bad one, but he’d thought that before, when they tried to take him away from his mom before. This one was younger, with blonde hair but she had that same no-nonsense way of walking into a room. And ugly shoes. Mom had always said to watch out for ugly shoes. They always worked for the city.

“Hi, Jason. I’m Jesse Chambers.”

“Hi,” he said, wishing he could make his voice behave. His palms were sweating already and he could feel his heart beating faster.

“So you know, Dr. Thompkins and Mr. Pennyworth are just outside in the hall. I left the door open a crack, so you and I can talk, but I’m happy to go get one of them any time you want.” She sat down in the rocking chair that Hal and Selina used. Jason didn’t like her being in it.

“Okay.” He licked his lips. “What do you want?”

“I just want to make sure things are going okay with you. Bruce and his extended family are approved for emergency foster placements, and they’re obviously happy to have you. I think they’re doing alright, but I want to make sure that you’re doing alright too.”

“I’m fine."

“Good,” she said. She looked perfectly honest. But they usually did. “I have to ask. I saw the garden and the chicken coop and the enormous kitchen. Is the food good here?”

“Oh yeah.” Jason smiled in spite of himself. He could talk about food. That was safe. “Alfred makes smoothies that are like… I don’t know, like milkshakes, but they taste better.”

“What flavors?” Jesse leaned forward. “Vanilla is my favorite.”

“Ugh. No.” He forgot a little more of his caution and made a face. “So far he’s done, um, mango and orange. And a peanut butter chocolate one last night, cause I wasn’t hungry for dinner.”

“What was dinner?”

“It was grilled cheese, but it didn’t smell good.” He kind of tilted his head in the direction of the nebulizer. “I guess it’s normal.”

“It’s totally normal,” Jesse said. “I had to take steroids one time when I had really bad poison oak after a cross country race. After a couple days, though, I was hungry all the time.”

“Hey can ask you a question?” The words came out in a rush, stepping on the end of her sentence.

“Sure,” she said, her eyes looking a little more attentive.

“What happens if the paternity test comes back and I’m not really his kid?”

“Ah.” She leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees. “Well, a couple things could happen. You and I would talk about it together, I promise. But we’d find you another foster placement. I can’t promise this kind of smoothie selection, though.”

“Right.” His hands went back to the deck of cards which he cut over and over.

“Listen, Jason,” she said. “There’s all kinds of foster families. Some are better than others. And I won’t leave you hanging, okay?”

“Yeah.” He tried shuffling again, but his hands were so sweaty that the cards stuck to his palms a little.

“Something else bothering you?”

“Like. If the test is negative. Do you think. Do you think they’d still let me stay here?” he whispered.

“I don’t know." Her face was so careful that it had to mean no. "It’s something we can ask, if we need to. But I don’t know the answer to that right now.”

“Right yeah. Of course.” Jason looked down at his hands and started shuffling the cards again.

* * *

“We can’t go in there,” Tim hissed. “He’s been unwell. And he had a big morning.”

“Been unwell. Had a big morning,” Dick parroted back. “You sound like Alfred.”

Tim did something with his torso, a combination of bristling and puffing his chest out that made Dick smile. Tim had been so shy when he got to the Manor that Dick had almost been afraid of scaring him off, like one of the mostly stray cats that the circus often shared lodgings with. Now he was a little more scrappy, that’s what his mother would have said about him. A scrappy boy. She hadn’t called Dick scrappy, though. No, not her little robin, her baby bird.

“What’s wrong?” Tim asked.

“Nothing.” Dick found his smile again. “Come on. We know Cass has been in there. Why shouldn’t we go in, too?”

Tim turned a little red, then he said, “Fine. But we have to be quiet and leave if he’s tired or if he’s sleeping or something like that.”

“Done.” Dick stuck his hand out, and they shook on it. That was another thing he remembered from his mom and the stray cats. You’ve got to be fair with them, Dickie, she had said, and taught him to reward proximity with tuna. You’ve got to be fair, Dickie. He swallowed hard and opened the door as slowly as he could. Tim talked like he was nervous, but he was right behind him.

The boy on the bed looked over. He looked maybe as tall as Dick, but skinnier even than Tim. He was in pajamas and reading a book and drinking a purple smoothie.

“Does Alfred know you’re here?” he asked hoarsely.

“No,” Tim admitted immediately.

“Can we stay?” Dick asked.

The boy looked between the two of them, like he was trying to decide.

“Is that Battlestar?” Tim asked, interest piqued by the DVD case on the dresser. “Bruce said I wasn’t old enough to watch that!”

“Uh,” the boy said. “They kill, like, a lot of people.”

Tim sighed.

“But Selina brought me _ Pirates of the Caribbean _ , if you want to stay. I’m Jason.”

“Cool!” Dick said. “I’ll get the candy.”

“You have candy?” Tim demanded. “Why don’t I have candy?”

Dick darted back into his room and fished up the false cardboard bottom of his nightstand drawer and brought about half his stash back, offering some to Tim and a full-size Snickers to Jason. Dick had learned how to do that from his dad, who loved an occasional Cuban cigar, but had to hide them shrewdly to keep them safe.

“For me?” Jason asked.

“It’s only fair,” Dick said.

“Thanks. I like Snickers.”

* * *

The thing about the line for the good food at Gotham General’s cafeteria, was that it turned at a right angle. And it was the good food, not the salad bar, which was opposite and had a straight queue. But not much of a queue, because at some point, someone had ditched the mass market food and brought in local vendors. Today was authentic barbecue, from a Texas kid named Jamie who had moved to Yankeedom for education, discovered Yankee education (and food) was bullshit, and gone into business for himself. Bruce had never met him, but he was already a legend. He started his ribs low and slow in a smoker with real mesquite, then finished them in the ovens at the hospital. Real mesquite ribs. Real potato salad. Barbecue sauce from scratch. There were rumors that Jamie was branching out into Mexican food, that there might be nopales today.

So the line today was around the corner. Which meant, while Bruce waited on one side with some orderlies and a couple peds nurses, around the corner one of the other pathology residents was talking about him. He considered bailing. But he had his pride. The barbecue smell was also a compelling factor.

“Three kids before thirty and he’s not even Mormon, Jesus.” 

“It’s not like condoms are a new invention.”

“And all different mothers.”

“I don’t understand,” said a new voice, female, with an accent. “He is just a young man with young children?”

There was an awkward pause around the corner.

“It’s just not something you usually see,” one resident, maybe Chad, explained patiently, “in men of a certain class.”

“He uses them ill?” She was Greek, maybe? And she spoke like she’d learned English primarily from watching BBC Shakespeare adaptations.

“No, no,” Chad said. “It’s just unusual.”

“For a man in his prime to have sons and daughters?” She was sounding truly irritated now, like she suspected they were teasing her.

“Look, maybe where you come from--” the other resident said.

“Yes, we also need men to make children,” said the Greek woman tartly.

“Maybe when you’ve been here a little longer--”

“This is true. I have learned none of your evil ways.”

He heard Brian take an exasperated breath, ready to rally, when one of the orderlies beside Bruce cleared her throat. Ah. The line had moved ahead and it was time to turn the corner. Bruce inhaled, exhaled, squared his shoulders, and did so. Brian abruptly fell silent, and so did his companion, whose name was...Preston.

“I heard there might be nopales,” Bruce said coolly.

Preston and Brian vanished in a sussurating cloud of excuses.

“You must be the outrageous man with the children.” She was tall, maybe six feet, and very fit looking under her blue and red flight suit with an asclepius insignia. An air ambulance pilot, then.

“That’s me.”

“Diana Kyniska.” She stuck out her hand. “They seemed quite shocked. Do the doctors here not understand that fornication is a necessary act of procreation?”

“I’ve certainly done my part to educate them,” he shook her hand warmly. “Bruce Wayne.”

“A pleasure,” Diana said. “What is a nopales?”

There were, sadly, no nopales, but the young chef, Jamie Reyes, was glad to hear there was a market for them. He gave them both extra cornbread after Bruce paid an exorbitant $5 for an ice cold Big Red.

“What on earth does it taste like?” Diana asked, incredulous that a soda could be worth it.

“Chemicals, mostly.” He smiled at his tray and his very unbalanced meal. “But I hitchhiked through West Texas one time.” He realized, once his mouth was full of ribs, that he’d stopped in the middle of the story. Not even the middle. He’d just started a conversation and left it in the middle of the table to die. He could imagine Alfred’s crestfallen face.

“I have not visited Texas yet,” Diana said, apparently not noticing his failure. “Except for the Level I trauma facilities, of course.”

“Of course.”

“I would like to hear more about your scandalous children, if you are willing to share. I can keep a confidence.”

  
Bruce weighed it for a moment. The truth was that he hadn’t talked about them to anyone outside of the Manor. And he found that he wanted to. He had a picture of Tim on his phone, with an enormous chocolate milk mustache. In the background, Cass was laughing with her hands over her mouth while Dick, face twisted in concentration, attempted to sign something to her and failed miserably. Selina had sent it to him after rounds and he had no one to show it to.

“They are a little scandalous,” he said, and reached for the pocket of his white coat. “Would you like to see?”

* * *

“She’s so far out of my league, Kyle,” Harley lamented. “She’s like eight feet tall and two of those feet are her boobs. Just two solid feet of magnificent breasts.”

“Okay,” Selina said. “I’m calling you a cab.”

“And her brains, Kyle. And her hair. Did I tell you about her hair?”

“How are you this drunk? You had like two glasses of wine.”

“I had a couple Scotches while I was waiting for you to get out of class.” Harley said. “Her hair is like a beautiful red cloud. Like a forest fire smoky cloud or some shit. Lava, if lava was soft and bouncy. Like her breasts.”

“Lovely.” Selina swapped out Harley’s half-full wine glass for a large tumbler of ice water and pulled up her Uber app. “Drink that.”

“I know what’s wrong with me, don’t worry,” Harley said morosely. “I associate romance with fear and exploitation.I don’t believe someone could love me and not also want to hurt me. I lack the self-esteem to feel confident that I can leave if they did.”

“Harley,” Selina said, softly.

“I know, I know. I just want you to know that I know.”

“Okay. Well, then, you probably know what you have to do next.”

“That’s what the Scotch was for.”

“But not tonight, right?”

“No, no. I have to be mostly kinda sober to talk to her. Which is even worse.”

“Tell me about it,” Selena sighed, sipping at the remainder of Harley’s wine.

“Spill,” Harley said.

“It’s complicated,” she hedged.

“Bitch, I just told you I’m afraid of intimacy because I associate it with physical violence and love makes me cringe like Pavlov’s kicked dog. Give up the goods.”

“Okay, well. That’s a fair point.” Selena set the glass down. “His job is really intense right now. His family is...busy. And I’m not a priority and I knew that I wouldn’t be. And it’s not like I like clingy. I hate clingy. But I...miss the attention.”

“Ohhhh,” Harley sing-songed. “You want what you can’t have.”

“No,” she denied reflexively.

“You’re one of those that wants to be chased.”

“That’s not...untrue. But--”

“And you don’t mind being caught, as long as you know you can run again.” Harley narrowed her eyes and her focus. “You need an exit strategy to feel safe. And you need to be chased over and over and over again as proof that you’re wanted. I bet you acted out a lot as a kid. I bet that’s how you ended up dancing. I bet you love making people seek you out. I bet your abandonment issues have abandonment issues.”

“I don’t like you drunk,” Selena muttered, and finished the wine.

“I bet--”

Mercifully, the doorbell rang. Selena moved with haste, some might say fled, in its direction. She opened the door and it was Bruce in solid black scrubs.

“Oh,” she said, hoping her poker face was working.

“There’s a car downstairs looking for someone named Harley?”

“Right.” She stepped away from the door to let him in and turned towards the kitchen. “Hot mess, party of one, your ride is here.”

“I suspect,” Harley pontificated in the kitchen, “that it would take a hell of a man to keep your attention in the sack. Much less your--”

“Harley!” Selena snapped.

“Ooops.” Harley approached the door, grimacing at herself. “Sorry. Rookie mistake.” Then she looked Bruce up and down, then up and down again. “Holy shit, Kyle.”

“Goodbye, Harley.”

“I mean--holy shit.”

Selena gave her a gentle shove outside and then shut the door behind her.

“Holy shit!” came Harley’s muffled voice from the hall.

“That’s not the same friend that helps Dick with his tumbling, is it?”

“She had a rough day. Also, I maybe didn’t tell her the hotshot young doctor I was dating was you.”

“Okay,” Bruce glanced back at the door one more time and followed her into the kitchen. He sat down on the same stool Harley had and looked down at his hands. 

“What’s going on?” Selena asked, passing him his own glass of water.

“I just wanted to see you,” he said.

She considered this. If she hadn’t been fresh from Harley’s brutal analysis, Selena would have just dragged him to bed and had her way with him. Because he’d sought her out tonight? As proof that she was wanted? Because her abandonment issues had abandonment issues?

“Fucking Harley Quinn.”

“What?” he said.

“Bruce.” Selena sat down heavily beside him. She had always appreciated that he didn’t ask much, and he didn’t pry at all about her life before they met. “I’ve had exactly zero hours of real therapy, but there was a period of time in my early twenties when I got high and read a lot of books.”

“Mm.”

“And I forgot, with how well you were handling everything else, that you might still lose your shit.”

“I’m not losing my shit.” His answer was immediate, his tone defensive, maybe even a little offended by her language. 

“Not yet, but...what happened in Paris. You can’t make it un-happen.” She looked up and met his eyes. “Didn’t you have to do a psychiatry rotation at some point?” she asked helplessly.

“I don’t have any structural or organic cerebral conditions.” 

“Yeah okay. Let me translate this for you.” 

“Translate.”

“Shh. I’m thinking.” She polished off the wine. “Do you know what Rhabdo is?”

“I do.”

“I remember when I got Rhabdo, and--”

“When did you have Rhabdo?”

“Bruce. Focus. Do you remember what causes it?”

“Right.” He flicked through the renal textbook of his mind. “Skeletal muscle damage. CK and myoglobin in the blood. Without rehydration and fluids, kidney damage. Can be temporary or permanent.” He paused, considering. “You think my kidneys are under stress.”

“Yes.”

“You think I need IV saline and re-balanced electrolytes.”

“I think your electrolytes are shit, Bruce. And I think that ignoring the problem is going to end with you on dialysis and a transplant list.”

“Well, at least there are potential donors now.”

“And that’s what I’m talking about, Bat,” she snapped. “You can’t take this shit home and joke about it in front of the kids. Your kidney donors don’t need to catch your Rhabdo.”

“That’s not really how--”

“Bruce, I swear on Alfred’s holy chicken coop, this is a dealbreaker. You cannot let this fester.”

She hadn’t meant to say it, but there it was in the air between them. He was waiting for her to take it back. There was no way in hell Selina was taking it back. She leveled a look at him. The apartment seemed shockingly quiet. The silence stretched on. Selina began to wonder if she had set herself up in Gotham and started community college to no purpose and what would she do now if this was it, for them.

“What do you recommend?” he asked, startling her out of her downward spiral.

“Well.” She hadn’t gotten that far. “Well. What did you do in Paris for fun?”

“You, mostly.”

“Oh goddammit, Bruce.” She was able to smother her amusement with her exasperation, but just barely.

“Sorry. Uhm. Savate, mostly.”

“Yeah, okay.” Selena snatched up her phone again and began to search. “Get your keys. Get your wallet. I'm drinking. You're driving.”

“What do I get out of this, exactly?” he muttered, rising to his feet.

“You get to keep your smokeshow girlfriend, that’s what.”

“Fair,” he said, still looking and sounding tired. Not tired, really. Worn thin. Fatigued. He followed her down the stairs, out the exit to the small lot, and into his car before he asked. “Where are we going?”

“A Krav Maga place on Fifth.”

“I don’t like Krav Maga.”

“Have you ever done Krav Maga?”

“There’s no--”

“Tonight, you’re doing Krav Maga, Bruce. And you better warn them going in that you’re angry so nobody gets hurt.”

“I’m not angry.”

Selena snorted and then guffawed. Then she looked at him and saw he was perfectly serious and she snorted again. “Bruce you’re so angry I’m surprised you haven’t burst into flame.”

“I’m not,” he repeated, sounding perfectly sincere and maybe a little bewildered.

“Of course you are,” she said gently, and looked back down at her phone, a little shame breaking open inside her. Fuck. Bruce was so dense. She was so dense. “If you’re half as angry as I am, then you’re furious. I should have said something earlier. It’s something we should have talked about.”

“I know how you love to talk about things,” Bruce said, his voice warm and a little teasing.

“Only for you,” she said, dry and totally serious. “As far as I can tell, all the smart people agree you have to talk about this shit some time, or--”

“Or your kidneys fail.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m not angry about Paris,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the road.

“Really?”

“I am angry, though.”

“I know.”

“You know.”

“Yeah. I know,” she said a little sharply. Selena would have liked to have told him, or rather, would have liked to have been the kind of person who knew how to tell him how angry a young woman had to be dance en pointe, on broken toes, pulling nails out, taping over sores and pulling bones back together, icing, elevating, and always, always, always, in pain. And dancing on them, jumping, and doing it on purpose, even when nobody was watching her, just to prove to herself that she could. 

“Okay. You know.” Maybe Bruce wasn’t so dense.

“I think you’re mad that your career isn’t starting like you thought it would,” she said gently. “And I don’t mind Jersey, but we both know it’s not Paris. Instead of Fabienne, you’ve got dillholes who think they know you because they read a newspaper once upon a time. Plus, you’re a dad now with, you know, very little warning.” She inhaled. “And I know for a fact that you’re mad because they’re talking shit about your kids. If some bitch in the freezer aisle told me they thought Bettie Page looked weird, I’d kick her right in the box.”

“Bettie Page does look weird.”

“If you think I won’t kick you in the goolies, too, Wayne, you got another think coming.” That at least got him to smile. “It’s up here, on the left.”

“What are you going to do while I’m doing...Krav Maga?”

“Make sure Harley drinks some water, text Alfred an update to keep us out of trouble, start on my reading for next week’s class, maybe find a bar and keep drinking.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, clearly having tuned out. He climbed out of the car handed her the keys through the window.

“Okay.” She turned back to her phone.

“Cat,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” she said, looking up. “I...you know.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow.

“I....” She cleared her throat. “Love you.”

“I love you, too,” he said. “You really need to work on that.”

“Oh, shut up and go punch something.”


	4. Day Four

Jason woke up feeling...gross. Breathing was a little harder than the day before, but not bad enough to be scary. And he was already tired, even though he’d slept like ten hours again. And he was fucking starving. Like if someone let him loose in a Big Belly Burger right now, he’d punch the dude behind the counter for some fries. And nuggets. And like eight Belly Buster Bonanza Meals. It was enough to distract him from the fact that he was cranky and a little short of breath.

“Morning, kid. What’s up,” Hal said, entering with a smoothie. It looked kind of pink this morning, which was a new color.

“Hi.” Jason held out his hands and more or less yoinked it. It was strawberry and kind of sweet and thicker… It was so good he kind of wanted to cry, which was a thing that happened when Alfred cooked for you, apparently.

“I know,” Hal said. “I’m not going to lie to you, kid, I drank the first one myself. Alfred had to make another one. It’s strawberry shortcake with actual crumbled up shortbread in it.”

“What’s shortbread?” Jason asked around a mouthful of smoothie.

“Uh, I think it’s mostly flour and butter? But I’m not the right person to ask.”

“Alfred?” Could Jason ask for another one? Was that too greedy?

“Alfred,” Hal confirmed. And after a pause, “He’d probably make a third, if you ask nicely.”

“Can I have real food today, too?” The question kind of tumbled out of him, chasing the flavor of homemade shortbread, whatever that really was.

Hal’s face did something weird. “Kid, you can have real food any time. Let me go downstairs and I’ll ask--”

“Cool, I’ll come with you.”

“Okay, but you have to put the slippers on, because if you don’t, Alfred will murder me and stake me out for the chickens to feed on.”

“Why?” Jason asked, looking for the ridiculously warm slippers to put on, even though all the floors are clean and it’s hardly cold.

“I have no idea.” Hal looked nonplussed. “I grew up in military housing and they did not have shit--stuff--like this at the PX, let me tell you. Here, wait, put your robe on too, or--”

“Or Alfred will murder you, blah blah blah. What is it with the robes and the slippers and the blankets?” Jason asked, a little testily, as he wrestled himself into the fleecy wrap.

“I have no idea, kid. But I opened my own dresser yesterday and there were a dozen pairs of cashmere socks and silk boxer briefs.”

“Silk?” Jason froze, legitimately scandalized. “Silk underwear?”

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. Slow down on the stairs, please, have I not explained what Alfred will do to me in satisfactory detail? It’s not how I want to go, not unless I’m the one that gets to say the butler did it.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind,” Hal sighed. “Do what you want. Just remember me when I’m bird food.”

“Chickens don’t eat meat,” Jason threw back over his shoulder, half-tumbling into the kitchen.

“Chickens,” Alfred intoned from the stove, “are omnivorous, Master Jason.”

“I knew it,” Hal muttered.

“I am pleased to see that you are at least suitably attired,” the butler went on. “Please have a seat. Not you, Master Harold. You are charged with conveying the other children into town for a series of appointments. Your schedule, map, and full portfolio are in the messenger back on the front hall table. Beside that bag is a cooler of appropriate nutritious snacks. Do not, under any circumstances, allow yourself to be compromised by pleas for soda, chips, or anything involving a Dairy Queen.”

“Damn,” Jason muttered.

“If you deviate from your assigned route, I will know,” Alfred said coldly. “And if I know, then Leslie will know.”

“And then they’ll never find the body parts,” Hal said cheerfully. “My favorite part about living here is how many people are willing to do me in. Makes me feel right at home. Jason, you’re probably safe.”

“Yeah,” Jason said, smiling a little. “Leslie likes me.”

“And Master Jason,” Alfred said, turning his back to begin assembling ingredients, “while I am preparing your banana chocolate chip pancakes, we will discuss your plans for the day, further dietary preferences you may have, and the appropriate use of the English language.”

Jason sat up a little straighter and Hal gave him two very sarcastic thumbs up and then went to find a shed-you-ell, map, and full portfolio. Then something occurred to Jason.

“How did you know I wanted banana chocolate chip?”

“I made an educated guess, based on your preferred smoothie selection.”

“Huh.”

“Indeed.”

* * *

“Cassandra, you have to use the booster seat. I’m not playing.”

From the passenger seat, she stared at him without blinking. As she had been for the last five minutes.

“You are not tall enough to ride this ride,” Hal insisted. “None of you, not a single one of you, is tall enough to ride this ride.”

“It’s kinda creepy when she does that,” Dick observed. He and Tim were already in the back seat of the slick SUV, in different booster seats of different configurations whose function largely eluded Hal except that they were Necessary For Safety. 

“I don’t know what the big deal is,” he muttered, resting his head gently against the steering wheel. “I didn’t even wear seatbelts when I was little and I turned out fine.”

“No seatbelts?” Tim squeaked. “No seatbelts?!”

“What a goat rope.” He banged his head lightly against the hand-tooled leather. “Cass. Cassie. I am begging you. I cannot fail before I even get out of your dad’s garage.”

“Cass doesn’t really get cars.” Dick said, kind of sheepishly.

“What the f-- the fudge does that mean?”

“Well, she and her mom mostly used the bus and the trains back home. And now anytime she gets in a car, somebody’s taking her to an appointment.

“Right.” This. This was a problem that Hal Jordan was uniquely prepared to handle. “Tim, you’re Naviguesser.” He handed back the briefing packet Alfred had given him, as well as the SUV’s Garmin. “Find me an open Dairy Queen or McDonalds on the way to our first destination. Anything but a Chick-Fil-A, really, but find one of those on the way to town.”

“That’s cheating,” Dick said, eyes alight at the prospect of fast food.

“No.”

“Yes it is.” Tim sounded a little more alarmed. “It’s bribery!”

“No. No, no, we’re just engaging in a little light behavior conditioning. Creating positive associations with car rides. It’s science.”

Cassandra smiled and crawled over the console and into the backseat, primly fastening herself into her booster seat.

* * *

“Wayne,” he said, answering his phone.

“Hi, this is Clark. Kent. Clark Kent.” A throat clearing. “This isn’t a business call. I mean it’s not entirely personal. But I was hoping you could...well.”

“What?” Bruce asked, somewhat snappishly. There was no assistance in the cafeteria today, so he was eating trail mix and black coffee in his car and calling it lunch. Now that he knew he was mad, the odds of him breaking another resident’s nose had tripled overnight. And now a reporter.

“We met--”

“I know who you are.” Bruce sighed. “What can I do for you, Mr. Kent?” There was a long pause. “I’m on my only break for the next six hours,” he said, sorting through the trail mix for the m&m’s, which he was setting aside on his console for dessert. Peanuts and raisins were clearly an entree.

“Well. I want to impress my girlfriend.”

“Does your girlfriend enjoy museum quality antiques and curiosities?” Bruce had several auction catalogs hidden under the front seat of his car right now. Quality bat items were hard to come by. There were rumors of a Chinese ink and wash painting from an estate on the west coast, but he’d yet to put eyes on it.

“Uh. No?” Clark sounded more than mildly confused.

“Then I have no idea how to impress your girlfriend.”

“I want to propose,” Clark admitted. “I have the ring. It’s a good ring. I checked with reliable sources. But. Lois isn’t like me. She’s a city girl. I’m from Kansas. Not even cool Kansas. And yes, there are cool parts of Kansas. Cooler. Lois likes gastropubs and fancy coffee and high heels. She’s under any sort of illusions about me. But I’d like to do this part right, you know? To show her I can try?”

Bruce exhaled slowly. He could see it. “What’s your budget?”

“I have five hundred set aside for a fancy dinner, champagne, the works..”

“Well for starters, you’re going to need to double that.”

“I’m not buying a car,” Clark objected.

“What domestic jalopy could you possibly purchase for one thousand dollars? No. Don't tell me.” Sometimes these things just came out of Bruce’s mouth, without any warning and no discretion. But truly. 

There was some incoherent grumbling from the direction of Metropolis. “Fine,” he said. “A thousand.”

“Good. Do you have a pen and paper?”

“Always.”

“Write down exactly what I’m about to tell you. And send me a picture of the ring, just to put my mind at ease.”

“I already--”

“It’s non-negotiable.”

When the conversation was done, he picked up the phone and called Alfred.

“Yes, Master Bruce?”

“You remember that reporter?”

“I do,” Alfred said, tone not entirely disapproving.

“He needs your help.”

“What on earth could he possibly--”

“He’s proposing to his girlfriend.”

“And we are in favor of the match?”

“The girlfriend is Lois Lane.”

“Lois Lane who wrote the profiles of Euna Lee and Lisa Ling last month? Who covered the Winograd Commission last year?”

“The very one.”

“Oh dear.” Alfred paused. “Dear, dear, dear. I didn’t want to say anything at the time, but when last I saw him, that man’s socks did not entirely match one another.”

“He was raised on a farm in Kansas. He wants to propose over dinner like, and I quote: ‘folks do in the city.’ He planned to select the restaurant based on Yelp reviews.”

Alfred made a small noise of distress.

“You see the problem.”

“Yes, yes. I’ll arrange everything.”

“He’ll need a barber too.”

“And a proper suit, too, I should imagine.”

“He can foot the bill for most of it. But when you make the dinner reservation, please make sure I pay for a bottle of champagne, or whiskey, if she turns him down.”

“Very prudent. You may leave it in my capable hands. And Master Bruce?”

“Yes?”

“There is a thermos of minestrone in the console, if you’d like something more substantial than trail mix.”

“I…” Bruce lifted the lid of the console. “Thank you, Alfred.”

“You’re quite welcome, sir.”

* * *

Jason was supposed to be napping, or at least resting after breakfast, but he wasn’t. Leslie said this might happen, that the drugs might start making him ‘irritable.’ He didn’t feel ‘irritable,’ he felt like...all the things. Improbably, in his room with his gentle sunshine and view, he wanted to be homeless again. The thing about being homeless, and it had been the same way even when his mom was alive, the thing was that you were so busy trying to plan the next twelve hours, you didn’t have to worry past that. But now he was full and ‘irritable’ and in clean sweats and all he really wanted was to disappear.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to put him in this room and then make him wonder when it would be taken away. It wasn’t fair to drink smoothies and eat, like, custom pancakes, and then have to go back to the half-empty coffees he filched from thoughtless Wawa patrons. It wasn’t fair to sleep at night on this mattress, which was cleaner even than his clothes, and have to think about going back to cardboard or a funny smelling bed in a group home. For the first time in a long time, Jason had the time and space to wonder if he could stand it. Going back.

“Shut up,” he said aloud to himself, and repeated one of his father’s maxims: “Life’s not fair.”

Willis wasn’t a bad man, not like some other dads in their building. He didn’t beat on his family. He didn’t steal their food stamps, or yell all the time, or tell Jason he was worthless or do any of the funny-touching stuff that Jason knew went on in other families. The thing about Willis was that he wasn’t there that much. And when he was there, he was mad. Not, like mad at Jason or his mom or anyone even in particular. Willis was just mad.

“This is how it starts,” he would say, whenever his son came home with a story of a schoolyard injustice. “They want to make you feel small, son. They want to keep you down.”

Sometimes his mom would object, making a joke, or telling him not to be so serious.

“It’s all the same shit,” Willis would say. “They start it now, so that you’ll get used to it. Used to taking it.”

Jason never understood what ‘it’ was, because he’d only been talking about how Jorge had cheated at four square. He was careful not to say Jorge’s name, though, because Willis Todd also had a lot to say about Mexicans. Jason was pretty sure Jorge’s family was from Puerto Rico, though, which was also just America. His mom had pulled Jason aside and advised him that it was just better not to mention some things in front of dad. So Jason didn’t, until Jorge really had cheated at four square.

“They want to take everything from us, son,” Willis Todd said. “They want you to be ready to give it up.”

Well now Jason had something that he wanted. Just this room and its bed and its TV and the way you could see the chicken coop from almost any angle. He didn’t want to give it up. But it wasn’t really his to keep, because Willis Todd was right. Life wasn’t fair.

* * *

By the time he got the SUV and cargo home, Hal was absolutely over this day. Completely and absolutely over it. Playing chauffeur to the kids was complicated and made him feel like a particularly inept soccer mom, but it wasn’t the real problem. The real problem was the Dairy Queen. Because as it turned out, Cassandra Wayne was profoundly lactose intolerant. 

Profoundly. 

Hal had opened the windows, the sunroof, and at one point he had opened his car door at a stoplight and fanned it desperately. There was no relief. Her brothers, of course, thought this particularly pungent flatulence was hysterical. Every expulsion was greeted with gales of laughter while Hal tried not to gag. She was so cute that it seemed impossible she could create such a toxic atmosphere with nothing but a milkshake. And yet.

“Not a word,” Hal said to Tim and Dick. “Not a word of this to Alfred.”

“He’s gonna know anyway,” Dick said flippantly. “I mean, the smell.”

“He did warn you.”

“Thank you, Tim. That’s particularly helpful. Please go away now.”

Unaffected, Tim shrugged and the three of them thundered into the house and up the stairs to their rooms, presumably to wash up for dinner. Hopefully they’d open a window. Hal felt like he needed a decontamination scrub down and an oxygen mask. The best he could do was the shower, which was damn good. But the smell, it felt like it lingered. It marked him. The tell-tale fart.

Hal sauntered into the guest wing hall, doing his best to pretend nothing was wrong, that he hadn’t totally fucked up his one job for the day. 

“I know that look,” a woman said behind him. “You disobeyed Alfred.”

“Shit.” He turned on his heel, startled. It was the buff redhead with the butch haircut and smirk. “How’d you know?”

“Please. I see that look in the mirror most days.”

“Hal Jordan.”

“Kate Kane. Bruce’s cousin on his mom’s side. And I was first gay zoomie to set foot in this house, so don’t go getting ideas about being special.”

“How--?”

“Sorry, op-sec. Strictly need to know.”

“Jesus Christ this family.” Hal scrubbed a hand over his face. “I need a flow chart and an ativan.”

“Alfred might dose you, but don’t ask him about my parents. I wouldn’t be surprised if he takes a vacation day occasionally to piss on my dad’s headstone.”

“Maybe several ativan,” Hal muttered to himself. “Or laudanum. This seems like the kind of house that would have laudanum.”

“Be nice, or I won’t take you to the good clubs in town.”

“Clubs,” he breathed out reverently. Grown up clubs. With dancing. And booze. And men.

“See? There’s a good boy.” Kate patted him gently on the arm. “Listen, I’d love to chat but one of my favorite casual hookups is in town. She’s either on her way to New York for some fashion thing or she’s bringing in MDMA from Toronto.”

“I thought you only dated European royalty.” That was the impression he’d gotten from Bruce, anyway.

Kate shrugged. “She’s a Canadian video store heiress and she loves dancing on tables. Great legs.”

“Your type?” He couldn’t help feeling a little skeptical, looking at Kate with her low fade and squared shoulders.

“My type is currently ‘unavailable for a serious relationship.’ She might just be going long-term undercover for an alphabet agency. Or she just hates my guts.”

“Ouch.”

“Anyway, I’m out. If you want a little entertainment, poke your head in the kitchen. I think the new kid’s trying to sing for his supper.” Kate threw up a peace sign that somehow managed to be sarcastic and headed for the door. She was wearing black leather motorcycle boots, black leather pants that looked painted on, and a shirt that might be made of chain mail--and yet she made no discernible sound. Wild.

Hal tiptoed in the opposite direction, towards the kitchen, finding a wall and angle where he could hear well and see enough to follow events. Alfred was standing at the sink, adding dish soap to warm water. Beside him, Jason approached in a bathrobe.

“I can help with dishes?”

“Absolutely not!” Alfred looked like someone had taken a dump on his tea service. “Dr. Thompkins would have me drawn and quartered.”

“Oh that’s gross. I read about that one in a library book.”

“They carry books on methods of execution in your school library?” He began to work on the lunch dishes.

“Park Row Memorial is a public library,” Jason shrugged. “You can read whatever you want. It’s like...their whole thing. I got really into pirate books, which is how it came up.” 

“Good heavens.”

“It’s not like there were pictures. Ms. Nilsson caught me trying to google it and said it wasn’t appropriate, especially when there was a story time going on. But all the little kids were watching the librarian and it’s not like it was porn.”

“How-- No, I shan’t ask that.” Alfred sighed. “Some things must be considered beyond my purview.”

“What’s a purview?”

“Ah. It’s the range or scope of my responsibility.”

“You’re not in charge of everything?” Jason asked, skeptically. In the hallway, Hal grinned.

“Thankfully,” Alfred said. “I am not.”

“Who’s in charge, then?”

“Well, ostensibly Master Bruce. Myself, for practicalities. With his blessing, I retain durable power of attorney over the estate. We both accept some direction from Dr. Thompkins. But, really, I suppose it’s Miss Cassandra.”

“Cass?”

“Tell me, Master Jason, during your visit, have you seen Miss Cassandra once ask for anything.”

“No.” 

“And why not?” Alfred said, and there was a long silence before Jason answered.

“Cause she never has to.”

“Precisely.”

Silence.

“I could dry the dishes?”

“Under no circumstances whatsoever,” Alfred said cheerfully. “So. Who is your favorite pirate?”

“Anne Bonny.” Jason said immediately. “You know what she said to her boyfriend when they got caught? She said: If you would have fought like a man, you wouldn’t have to die like a dog.”

“Are you telling pirate stories without me?” Hal entered.

“Hey!” Jason said, smiling warmly. “Who’s your favorite?”

“Ching Shih,” Hal said.

“Oh, that’s a girl, too! She was a prostitute before she was a pirate!” Then Jason blushed. “Sorry. Ms. Nilsson says to say sex worker, not prostitute now. It’s not polite.”

“Ms. Nilsson is correct,” Alfred said neutrally, but Hal could see his scalp wrinkle with the effort.

“Hey,” said Hal. “I’ve never seen that space show you’re watching.”

“Really?” Jason’s head whipped around. “I’m not starting over for you.”

“Okay, but then you have to stop and explain things to me.”

“Fine, but no playing dumb.”

“Kid, I’m never playing at being dumb.”

Hal winked at Alfred, who nodded his thanks as he and Jason climbed the stairs. The poor man probably just wanted to wash his dishes in peace, without navigating the minefields of public execution or sex for money.

“Okay, so,” Jason began, a little out of breath. “The most important thing you need to know is that Starbuck is the best.”

“Is he an alien?”

“There's no aliens, Hal. Starbuck is a girl and she’s a pilot.”

“Love her already.”

* * *

“Bat.”

“Cat?”

“You have to do something about these assholes at work.”

“What makes you say that?”

Selina rolled her eyes. Bruce was face down on her mattress, so he couldn’t see. They’d just finished their second round and she was sitting on him, sated, trying to rub some of the tension out of his back. It had been like this since residency started. In Paris, sex had always made it better. Now, it was just a temporary reprieve.

“I may not know anatomy like you do,” she said, “but I’m fairly certain these muscles aren’t supposed to be lumpy. There’s a knot right here that actually feels crunchy.” She leaned into it mercilessly. 

“Hnn.” He sucked in a breath as his back spasmed briefly, then exhaled slowly as the knot eased. “It’s fine.”

“Sure,” she said, tilting her head up and mouthing HELP ME, DITA at her ceiling. Bettie Page, who was perched on a red upholstered cat-tree, received her prayers. “Have you talked to Jason yet?”

“Hnn.”

Selina found another knot closer to his spine and applied weight with the base of her hand. His leg twitched. Yeah, things were definitely fine. She had no choice now. She was going to have to join forces with Alfred.


	5. Day Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Selina and Alfred hatch a plot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been determined, at this time, to be an essential employee of my institution for reasons FAR beyond my comprehension. I long to be inessential and at home reading and writing more fic.
> 
> Anywho, italics means ASL, unless it's a book title, and then it's just a book title. ASL is not one of my languages, so please forgive any syntax I mess up.

Alfred awoke, as he always did, at first light. He was alone this morning, as Leslie had an early morning errand in the city. And, much to his delight, his own internal clock was the only impetus for his wakefulness. Master Bruce had spent the night away from the house as well, probably not at the stately Wayne penthouse. Alfred belted his robe and shuffled into the kitchen to prepare tea, the first cup of which he considered a sacrosanct privilege. 

He was somewhat surprised, as he was pouring his second cup and contemplating a winter garden, to hear a car motor to the side of the house. He stood and walked in his house shoes to the window, where a sleek gray Acura sedan pulled up. Selina. Kyle. Alone.

“Interesting,” he said, and put more water onto boil. She preferred Earl Grey, to his Ceylon. But he could tolerate another cup or two. Her entrance into the house via the back door was almost entirely without sound. If he hadn’t heard the car, she might have given him a genuine fright.

“Good morning, Miss Kyle,” he said, restarting the burner under the kettle.

“Good morning, Alfred. I’m glad I didn’t wake you.”

“Even if you had, it would hardly be an imposition. Please, have a seat.” He took a chair across from her, and scooped some Earl Grey, loose leaf, into the pot.

“You remembered.”

“I am yet in command of my faculties,” he said wryly, and she looked down at her manicured hands. Alfred frowned at his own choice of words and tone. He disliked that he always felt as though he were putting a foot wrong with her. “I remember the peaberry blend Master Bruce likes best. I remember which dinners the children prefer. I remember that Mrs. Wayne preferred Catherine Walker to Chanel. What is important to the people in my house is important to me.”

“I see,” she said, examining her ballet pink nails. 

The kettle began to shriek and the conversation paused while Alfred continued the ritual, adding the hot water to the pot, and replacing the lid on the pot, the kettle on the stove. Then he took his seat again.

“Do you know,” Selina said, “that I’d never even seen loose leaf tea until my first international tour? I didn’t even know there was tea besides Lipton until I moved to New York City.”

“It’s too early in the day to mention Lipton, Miss Kyle.”

“We used to microwave the water,” she said, a little smiling playing at the corner of her mouth. She was beautiful and funny and rather brave and it was no wonder Bruce loved her.

“Cease. I beg you,” he said. “I can’t believe you would wake up this early in the morning and drive out to the Manor simply to torment an old man.”

“Oh, Alfred. I’d wake up much earlier than this.”

He made a noise of disapproval that sounded a lot like a harrumph to his own ears. They waited quietly for a moment until he deemed the tea sufficiently strong, then poured them each a cup. She took hers with milk, he with sugar. 

“Miss Kyle?” he asked, after they took their first sips. “Is all well?”

“This world. Bruce’s world. I don’t understand it,” she said, turning her saucer counter-clockwise on the table. “No, that’s not true. I do understand it. But I don’t know how to approach it.”

“I see.” He took another sip. “Go on.”

“Bruce’s fancy doctor colleagues are giving him shit.”

“Unfortunate, but not surprising. It was the same when he was young, whenever he began a new year of school. Much to my chagrin, I didn’t press the schools as hard as I should. The same when he went away to college. The only break he had was that summer camp with-- Well. Bruce has been handling it for years.”

“No, Alfred. They’re giving him shit about the kids.”

“Well then.” Alfred set the teacup down with a decisive and precise clink.

“You’re not going to tell me to be the bigger person, are you?”

“Don’t be absurd. What do you propose.”

“That’s the problem. I have no idea what a proportional response is, in this world.” Selina huffed out a laugh and tucked a small box braid behind her ear. “Slash somebody’s tires? Flood somebody’s fancy penthouse? Break up somebody’s marriage?”

“I’m sure that would be quite satisfactory in the moment, but is unlikely to help in the long run.”

“Exactly.”

“What we need, Miss Kyle, is a charm offensive.”

“I already said I’m ready to homewreck,” she muttered into her tea.

“I will pretend I didn’t hear that, for both our sakes.” Alfred tapped his fingers lightly on the table, running through scenarios while Selina poured herself more tea. They were both deep enough in thought that Cassandra’s entrance was a surprise. 

She tumbled in with outrageous bedhead, mismatched princess pajamas (Belle and Mulan), a lavender bunny rabbit under her arm, and lurched straight for Alfred. He caught her smoothly up and set her sideways on his lap, so he could see her hands.

“Good morning, my treasure.”

_ Good morning _ , she signed. Thankfully, it was one of the phrases he could reliably recognize. She yawned hugely and tugged on the bunny’s ears.

“How may I be of service to you?”

_ Grandfather! Breakfast! Please!  _ Then Cass looked across the table and did something he didn’t recognize.

“I don’t know that sign,” he said, mentally reprimanding himself for his slow progress. 

“I think it’s my name,” Selina said, signing hesitantly as she spoke. “It’s the sign for pretty and then cat.”

_ Selina! _

“How apropos. Would you like some tea, lamb?” Alfred poured perhaps a tablespoon of Earl Grey into his empty mug, stirred in some sugar, and then filled the rest with milk.

_ Thank you! _ She slurped it, holding with both her hands. He put his arm around Cass’s waist so she wouldn’t fall off the chair with her own delight.

“You’re very welcome,” he said, making the sign with his free hand. When he looked up, Miss Kyle was watching him with a very odd expression on her face. 

* * *

Jason was coughing again, which was the worst. It wasn’t that strangling-to-death feeling, which was about all that could be said for it. He just felt wrung out and grimy, even though he took a shower that morning. Even his clothes, another pair of new pajama pants and a super soft rich people t-shirt, felt uncomfortable. He tossed aside  _ The Cold Dish _ and turned on the bed, trying in vain to get comfortable. 

“Hey,” said Hal from the door. He had two chocolate smoothies and Jason couldn’t wait to find out what Alfred had put in them this time.

“Hey.” Jason wasn’t entirely sure what Hal’s deal was. He was around a lot, but he didn’t appear to be particularly attached to any of the other adults in the house. Except Alfred, but as far as Jason could tell, Alfred was running the show. Jason pushed himself back up to sitting and coughed again, bent slightly forward.

“That doesn’t sound good.” Hal handed him the milkshake.

Jason shrugged and accepted it. He didn’t really feel like talking. And Hal loved talking.

“Is the lady doctor coming by today?”

Shrugging some more, Jason tried the smoothie. It was...amazing.

“Holy shit,” Hal said, staring at his glass in awe. “It’s basically nutella.”

“What?” Jason asked, trying to clear his throat, and failing. The smoothie was good, he just wasn’t that hungry.

“Oh no. I won’t spoil that surprise for you,” Hal said, then reached out and brushed Jason’s forehead.

“What the hell?” Jason asked, pulling back.

“I’m taking your temperature.”

“Does that even work?”

“I don’t know,” Hal admitted. “I’ve never actually tried.”

“Jesus. Just ask Alfred.”

“Right. Alfred.” He held up one finger. “I’ll be right back. Promise.”

Jason rolled his eyes. He really, really didn’t get what Hal’s deal was. He came back without Alfred, which surprised him, but with a steaming mug of tea, which he sat next to Jason’s almost full smoothie.

“I guess the doc’s going to drop by later. Alfre says she has to visit her chicken at least twice a week or she gets sad. The chicken, not the doc.”

“Whatever.” Jason reached for the tea and took a sip. It wasn’t bitter the way he was expecting. It was sweet and milky and just tasted the littlest bit like tea. It felt good.

“I can get out of your hair,” Hal offered. “Or, if you want, I could read. Don’t look at me like that. They don’t give you live missiles to play with if you can’t read the instructions first.”

That made Jason smile.

“Let me do one chapter,” he offered. “And you can pretend to fall asleep if you don’t like it.”

“Fine.” Jason coughed some more and burrowed sideways into his wedge pillow.

“Sweet.” Hal set himself up in a chair with his smoothie close by and picked up _ The Cold Dish _ , opening to the dog-eared page and began to read. “After the war, Lucian had drifted back to Wyoming and then back to Absaroka County. He then drifted into being sheriff on the strength of his being the toughest piece of gristle in four states.”

* * *

Bruce realized shortly after he got to the hospital that he didn’t have any lunch. If he’d spent the night at home, Alfred would have hidden something in his car console for him. But Bruce had been with Selina, whose idea of domestic support was slapping his bare ass and wishing him good luck at work before rolling over and going back to sleep. He smiled, thinking about it, and then realized Preston was looking at him out of the corner of his eye. Bruce put his smile away.

He took his break around one, dreading the trip to the cafeteria, and not just because it was Salisbury steak day. They staggered their breaks, so that there were always residents in the path lab, but no matter how Bruce timed it, he always ended up in a lunch line with a co-worker who hated him, or made fun of his kids, or both. And this time all he had to look forward to was questionable beef and reconstituted mashed potatoes. He spent the elevator ride thinking about how much money he could throw at the hospital to redo the entire food service, and if it would be worth it, even if his co-workers found out.

“Bruce!” someone called, as he stepped off the elevator and through the glass doors. It was Dr. Trent, smiling broadly, and waving. Bruce blinked. Next to him was Selina, in blue jean shorts, converse sneakers, and a crisp white t-shirt that showed just a half inch of soft, dark skin at her waist. He was so distracted by that half inch, he almost fell over when something barreled into his knees.

“Cass? Cass...” he said quizzically.

_ Hi, Dad! We [???] lunch. Grandfather made a [???]. There are heart [???] cookies!  _ She took him by the hand and hauled him towards the table where Selina and Dr. Trent were sitting.

“Heart what cookies cookies?” he asked, allowing himself to be towed. Cass had clearly dressed herself this morning in denim overalls, pink patent leather dress shoes, and one of Dick’s Iron Man t-shirts. And her locket. Bruce looked at Selina, whose eyes were alight with mischief.

“Linzer cookies,” Dr. Trent clarified, standing up. “Your daughter was kind enough to share with me on your behalf, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Of course not,” he said automatically.

“Don’t worry,” Selina said. “Alfred packed enough for all of us.”

“Did he now.” Bruce narrowed his eyes.

“Yes.” Selina stood on tiptoe and gave him a chaste peck on the cheek. Another quarter inch of skin was exposed. “He sent Italian wedding soup and a baguette. We were just going to drop it off, but then we ran into Dr. Trent.”

“And I insisted on giving them a small tour.”

_ Dad, I am hungry. Is it lunch time yet? Grandfather said I can’t have a heart [???] cookie before [???]. _

“Sure, we can eat,” he said and, somewhat grudgingly, sat down in front of a massive wicker hamper. “I’m sorry I don’t know that sign.”

“It’s window,” Selina said. “She calls them heart window cookies.”

_ [???] is learning [???] at her [???]. _

“Cass,” Selina said. “That’s our secret for now.”

_ Oops. Bread, please. _

Bruce, despite having clearly been outmaneuvered today, knew damn well that something was up. He was preparing to ask when Cass tapped him gently on the knee, her signal that she would like to sit there. In the time it took for him to lift her up, he lost his chance.

“You’ll join us, won’t you?” Selina was saying to Dr. Trent.

“I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Oh it’s no trouble at all. Alfred sent more than enough.” She was already opening up the hamper, which looked like something from Belle Epoque Harrods. It might be exactly that, actually. Bruce felt a vague wave of nostalgia, followed by the memory of an indoor picnic on a rainy day, rolling out a blanket in the ballroom.

“What a delightful set-up,” Dr. Trent said as Selina unpacked stoneware bowls and silverware with sturdy handles. It was clear that Alfred had sent enough for at least six people.

“I can’t take any credit for it,” she was saying. “The idea was all Cass.”

Cass smiled and waved at the older man, before tearing off a piece of baguette and cramming it into her mouth with gusto. Bruce’s suspicions only grew. Outmaneuvered, outflanked, and outmanned. He didn’t know what they were playing at, but he didn’t like surprises. He didn’t like wondering if his daughter had been dragooned into some scheme. Under the table, Selina’s foot hooked around his ankle and gently lifted the bottom hem of his scrubs, so that skin touched skin.. She began running her bare calf up his leg. It was very, very soft.

The next thing Bruce knew, he was sitting with a bowl of fragrant soup, a chunk of crusty bread, and against his wishes, he was actually enjoying the meal. It helped that a few other path residents had entered the cafeteria, only to be assailed by the smell of his delightful lunch and the sight of his...Selina. But the real charmer, he was beginning to realize, was Cassandra.

“So, my girl.” Dr. Trent said. Simon. At some point he’d insisted they call him Simon. “Are you proud to have a papa who’s a doctor?”

Cassandra made the universal  _ so-so _ gesture with her hand.

“Ha! Good for you. It’s not healthy to be too impressed by physicians.”

She nodded sagely and smeared a quarter cup of butter onto her remaining bread.

“It’s hard to explain what we do,” Bruce said. “Pathology, generally.”

“Ah,” Simon said, swallowing his soup. “But we are the great detectives of medicine. We investigate and solve the problems of the body.”

_ But you don’t fix people _ , Cass signed, and Selina translated.

“No, not on our own. But like real detectives, no one can solve a crime they don’t understand. Your father and I, it’s our job to understand the crime.”

Cass nodded, clearly considering this new line of reasoning. Then she asked for her cookie.

* * *

“Good eye, Hal,” Leslie said to him, as she accepted a beer from Alfred.

“He’s okay, though?” Hal had shoved both hands in his pocket to keep himself from wringing them together like the FNG he was.

“Okay as he’s gonna be. It’s the bronchitis, I’m pretty sure. He’ll have to use the nebulizer again for a few days. Mostly, though, we’re back to fluids and tylenol. I’ll listen again before I leave in the morning.”

“Okay,” Hal said, and was surprised to find Alfred’s hand on his shoulder.

“Excellent work, Master Harold,” he said, solemnly.

“I didn’t actually do anything.”

“Oh no,” Leslie said, raiding her bottle. “It’s an Alfred compliment. You can’t actually turn it down.”

“Really, I just--”

The butler speared him with a glance.

“Right. Uh. Thank you?”

“Nice,” Leslie said. “We’ll work on your delivery later.” She took a generous swig. “Now I’ve had a long day. Where the hell’s Mae West?”

Excusing himself from the romantic chicken tour, Hal grabbed a beer of his own and headed back upstairs. After a quick knock, he let himself in. Jason was on his side in the bed, another untouched smoothie on the bedside table. Outside, Alfred and Leslie were approaching the ridiculously over engineered chicken coop. Beyond that, the bodyguard, Ryan, was trying to walk Cass, Tim and Dick through a basic kata of some kind. Results looked mixed, but it did appear to be more fun than being stuck sick in bed.

“You know,” Hal said conversationally. “We have a saying where I come from: embrace the suck.”

“Sounds dumb.” Jason was hoarse, but at least he rolled away from the window.

“Oh it is dumb. But it’s very useful. Like those sticky non-slip things they put in the bottom of bathtubs.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about,” Jason said mulishly.

“Yeah. It’s what you say when everything sucks, but there’s nothing you can do about it except wait for it to stop sucking. Embrace the suck.”

“Embrace the suck.”

“Yep.” Hal took a sip of beer, trying to gauge Jason’s mood. “Hey, you want to watch some more Battle Starbuck?”

“You know that’s not what it’s called.”

“Starbuck Galactica?”

“I hate you,” Jason said, but he was smiling.

* * *

Dick was just drifting off to sleep when he heard the door to his room open. He opened one eye, to see his skinny little brother, hair stuck up all over, in an oversized Gotham Knights t-shirt. Timmy paused, silhouetted by the soft LED nightlight in the hall. Dick pushed himself upright and turned on the lamp on the bedside table.

“Bad dream?” Dick asked, lifting the corner of his comforter. Tim nodded and took two steps and then a flying leap onto the bed. He scrambled under the covers and left his face half-hidden there. “Was it a go-get-Bruce dream?”

“No,” Tim said quietly. 

“Want to watch a movie?”

“We’re not supposed to after bedtime.”

Dick sighed. He liked Tim, but Tim was real fond of rules. 

“Book?” Tim asked.

“Okay.” Dick would rather shovel elephant dung than read out loud. But for Tim, he would at least pretend. Beside his lamp was a selection of picture books that Alfred had selected:  _ The Snowy Day _ ,  _ Goodnight Moon _ ,  _ Corduroy _ ,  _ Caps for Sale. _ They weren’t bad books, but they were a little old fashioned. Dick also hated that they were picture books, not chapter books. He knew he was bad at reading.

“What’s that one?” Tim asked, poking his head above the covers.

Dick looked closer. There were a couple new books mixed in with the Alfred ones. He reached for one of them and carefully read the title,  _ Walter the Farting Dog _ . This was not an Alfred book. Dick opened the title and saw something written in loose cursive, which was like the hardest to read of all.

“It says: Enjoy, Love Dr. L,” Tim said, intuiting the problem. “Oh, man she got some good ones.  _ Say Hello to Zorro!  _ and  _ Knuffle Bunny _ and  _ Interrupting Chicken _ and  _ The Terrible Plop _ .”

“I want to do the farting one first.”

“Of course.” Tim pushed himself up to sitting and listened attentively as Dickie began reading in a halting voice about a homely dog named Walter with intestinal gas. They were only a few pages in when Cass appeared in a nightgown that also looked like Cinderella’s dress.

“Come on up,” Dickie said, and she took a running jump and landed on his other side. He had just gotten to the part with Walter’s first gastric indiscretion when his little sister made the most accurate fart noise he had ever heard. Tim hooted and almost fell out of bed.

“Shh!” Dick said, trying not to giggle.

Cass made the noise again, using the side of her cheeks and her teeth somehow. Then she waited, patiently, for Tim to stop laughing and Dick to keep reading. Against his will, Dick began to actually enjoy himself. Timmy was giggling the whole time, no matter how slow he read. And meanwhile, Cass was preparing to make somehow newer and more graphic fart noises. When they finished the book, Dick started over again at the beginning.

* * *

“Do I want to know?” Bruce asked at the bottom of the stairs, listening to a chorus of giggles and gas passing.

“Dr. Thompkins felt that the children’s reading material required more...verve.”

“How much verve are we talking about?”

“Quite a bit. I believe that flatulence is, in fact, the point of the story. However, this is Master Richard’s fourth time through the book,” Alfred said.

“Well.” Bruce’s eyebrows crawled north. “Can't argue with results. I’m sold.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the record, Walter the Farting Dog is a fantastic book and I recommend it for any kid who thinks books aren't fun. Fart jokes are fun for EVERYONE.
> 
> Please drop me a comment if you're enjoying it or if you need a book recommendation. I give great reader's advisory.


	6. Day Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This collection was made possible by the Kane Family Foundation. In addition to providing a generous endowment to expand the GIA’s collection of outsider art, the family has chosen to make a permanent loan of these items. While some pieces are more modern, most are representative of the former centuries of Judaica and other decorative arts. The majority of these objects were smuggled out of France with Bechor Cano during the Second World War, but they represent only a small part of the family’s collection, much of which has never been recovered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man y'all this quarantine nonsense is kicking my mental health ass. My job is 'exempt' from all the stay at home orders, even though I am only very tangentially related to health care. So I'm working two jobs and trying not to freak out that all my family is VERY far away and totally inaccessible and I'm sorry for the delay because my last two serotonin molecules are doing their best to keep me upright. Which is why there are no dark themes in this chapter, lol, sorry, it's bleak as hell in here.
> 
> Your comments are most gratefully received.

Selina was halfway through the small gallery of Judaica at the Gotham Institute of Art before she realized it was sponsored by the Kane family. She had an assignment for Art History 101, and she didn’t really need to visit the museum to do it, but she’d realized she’d never been. She’d visited every museum in Paris, which was no small accomplishment, but Selina couldn’t recall that she’d ever been in a single museum in her hometown. As a child, art had hardly been a priority. And she’d only begun to love beautiful things when she’d left for New York. MoMA was really her first love. The GIA was a decent museum, she knew, but nothing to what she’d seen abroad. Still, she felt a certain irrational loyalty to it, as all Gothamites must. This gallery was strange, though. It was a very white, very narrow room that ran parallel to a much larger space. The collection wasn’t large and it appeared to have been arranged to emphasize what wasn’t there, as much as what was. It took her a moment to find the neat little dedication plaque.

> _ This collection was made possible by the Kane Family Foundation. In addition to providing a generous endowment to expand the GIA’s collection of outsider art, the family has chosen to make a permanent loan of these items. While some pieces are more modern, most are representative of the former centuries of Judaica and other decorative arts. The majority of these objects were smuggled out of France with Bechor Cano during the Second World War, but they represent only a small part of the family’s collection, much of which has never been recovered.  _
> 
> _ At the time of the Office of the Inquisition, the family acquired the name Cano, which was assigned to them by la Santo Oficio in Spain. They were expelled from Spain in 1492, moving over the centuries to Venice, Istanbul, and lastly to Paris. In July of 1942, the French police came for the family as part of the Vel d’Hiv Roundup. Louis, his wife Simone, and their children Perla, Mois, Marthe, and Chaya. They were taken by gendarmes to the Velodrome and then to Drancy, where records indicate that they survived long enough to be transported and murdered in the east. The remaining son, Bechor Cano, was saved from death by Roger Belbeoch, one of the Righteous Among Nations. The survivors of Shoah who emigrated to America and settled in Gotham chose to anglicize their surname to Kane. This collection is dedicated to Louis, Simone, Perla, Mois, Marthe, and Chaya Cano, may their memory be for a blessing. _

Then Selina realized that the collection was arranged more or less chronologically, and she was going backwards, from the entrance to the end. There were a few bright Chagall pieces that made her smile, even though he was hardly her favorite. Then an aging photo of Alfred Dreyfus. She paused for some time in front of a painting by Tissot of an enervated woman laying face down on the floor, one hand to her face and the other stretched before her:  _ Bath Sheba Mourns Her Husband _ . Then there was a tiny Sèvres sugar bowl with a painstakingly painted bird next to a solid silver Kiddush Cup. The items grew less ornate as they moved back in time, maybe reflecting the Cano family’s standing? Or perhaps only the sturdiest items had survived? There was an illuminated Ketuba and an oil-burning Hanukkiah from 17th century Italy that was slightly, gently worn. Finally, at the end of the long hall was a half-shekel coin from the Hurvat Itri, from the First Jewish Revolt.

It was a beautiful collection, well arranged, Selina thought, emphasizing both continuity and scarcity. She started to turn, but there was one more item, tacked on somewhat awkwardly past the ancient shekel. Selina approached and found a case with a small stuffed animal, a chubby creature sitting on its bottom, head turned playfully to look at the viewer. It invited a smile. The object label read:  _ Bear belonging to Marthe Cano, b. 5 January 1939 in Paris, France d. 1942, date unknown, in a train car in Poland. Special loan of Martha Wayne nee Kane. _

Selina stood up, feeling suddenly cold. She turned and looked down the long hall of lonely Cano-Kane Judaica and realized she’d never seen so much as a Sabbath candlestick at Bruce’s house. Then she looked down again and it struck her that Martha Wayne had been named after a murdered child and, after her marriage, had given that little girl’s teddy bear to a museum. And sponsored an institution full of orphaned children with her husband’s money.. Disoriented, Selina absented herself to the museum cafe.

The cafe au lait was actually quite good, especially by American standards. She savored it while she had a good think over Bruce Wayne and his mother and what the hell her own next move was going to be.

* * *

“Wayne!”

The very second he heard his name yelled at him, Bruce began mentally running through a list of possible offenses. But he could find none. He was a good pathology resident. He was going to be the best pathology resident. But he was still a resident, so when people in authority yelled at you, it was best to assume responsibility. When he turned on his heel, though, it was Diana Kyniska, the pilot with the large hair and strong accent. He gave her a little wave and she glowered as she approached.

“Facilities tells me that your daughter came to visit,” she accused. “And I didn’t get to meet her.”

“Uh. Well, it was an unplanned visit.”

“Facilities says she is very cute.”

“Thank you,” he ventured, hoping that was the correct response. “She was on her best behavior.”

“I hear also from Facilities that your paramour was with her.”

“Hang on,” Bruce said, trying to pivot the conversation. “Who is your spy in Facilities?”

Diana smiled wolfishly. “As if I’d ever tell you.”

They ended up eating lunch together, which meant Bruce had lunch with someone else two days in a row instead of eating in his car or hiding in a stairwell. He considered that progress. Diana asked for family updates and was delighted to hear about the success of  _ Walter the Farting Dog _ . 

“It is the sort of humor that never fails,” she observed. “Especially with siblings.”

“Do you have many brothers and sisters?” he fished.

“Sisters” she confirmed. “Lots. I’m not sure exactly how many.”

Bruce, despite his determination to make friends, felt his eyebrows raising.

“I know,” Diana said with a wave of her hand. “But my mother and aunts are not really typical.” She smiled, then. “They have this huge house on the coast. Huge. And the house is always full. Some of them are…” she looked for the English term. “Foster children? Foster children. Some are adopted. Some just appear for meals from time to time. I didn’t know it was unusual until I was older.”

“Can I ask a personal question?” Bruce found himself saying.

“Of course,” she said. And when he didn’t ask right away, she started making a little get-on-with-it gesture with her fork.

“I am an only child. Did you...do you…” He cleared his throat. “If you have adopted sisters. Or different fathers.” He opened and shut his mouth, hardly able to believe that a child raised by Alfred Pennyworth was approaching this subject. “Is it the same.”

“You mean do I love my half-sisters and adopted sisters and foster sisters as much as I love the biological ones?” she asked baldly.

“Yes.” His ears burned and he stared down at his cafeteria tray.

“Of course not,” she said. “My sister Eppy--we share a mother--is a pious twat. I avoid her wherever possible. But Clio was just a baby when she was adopted by my mother. I was in middle school. I love her like I think I would love a baby of my own. And Io is one of the girls who became a sort of unofficial member of our family.” Diana leaned forward conspiratorially. “She was my first kiss.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t love any of them the same. But I would hide a body for all of them. No question.”

“No question?”

“That’s what family is,” she said, around a mouthful of food, stabbing the fork in his general direction for emphasis. “The people who hide your bodies.”

He almost objected, on the grounds that homicide and accessory after the fact charges were probably not a reliable barometer of familial affection, but then he thought about it a little more. He thought about Alfred. Alfred would hide a body for him. And probably landscape around it. Then Bruce thought about the children...his children, piled into a bed and making fart noises and laughing hysterically at themselves. If someone were to menace that? Ah.

“You see?” she asked.

“I see.” He turned the plate clockwise on his tray, then counter-clockwise. “There may be another.”

“Another what?”

Bruce gave her a direct look and tried to communicate without words.

“Ah. May be?”

“I’m waiting on test results.” He stared harder at the plate.

“It cannot be easy,” Diana said mildly, “becoming the pater familias.”

Bruce grimaced.

“Just remember. When you’re the pater, the familias is what you say it is.”

“That is my potestas,” he confirmed.

“Aha! At least they’re not neglecting the classics here in America.”

“I was overeducated at all the best private schools.” He scratched his chin. “I wonder what our household gods would be.”

“Something virile, no doubt.” She grinned at the face he pulled. “Liber, wasn’t it? Or Fascinus?”

“Yes,” Bruce said, tone bone dry. “We all tear off a piece of our rolls at dinner and throw it into the kitchen fire for the dildo god.”

Diana laughed loudly and slapped her palm on the table, startling the tables around them. Bruce realized that he liked her, not just as someone to eat lunch with. She had no artifice whatsoever and she knew enough Latin to make highbrow dick jokes in the cafeteria. 

“If I invite you over for dinner sometime next week,” he asked, “will you promise to avoid gratuitous phallus references?”

“I would be delighted.” She did look pleased. “May I bring my partner?”

“Of course. Any foods we should avoid?”

“None. And Steve will eat anything you put in front of him, so don’t put yourselves out on our account.”

“No chance of that,” he lied. Alfred would lose his damn mind when he found out Bruce had made a friend. They’d have to talk him out of using the Revere service.

On the way home from work, Bruce bit the proverbial bullet and called the private laboratory Leslie had used and asked for an update on the homeless boy’s paternity test. The test was not ready. The test, in point of fact, had never been received. There was no such test. And never had been.

* * *

Jason heard the downstairs door slam open. He jumped a little, but Dr. Leslie didn’t say anything, even though she must have noticed because just then she had a hand under his shirt and was listening to him breathe. Jason didn’t recognize the man’s loud voice in the kitchen, so it must be Mr. Wayne. Leslie finished her exam and pulled his sweatshirt down and put the pulse oxi thingy back on his finger.

“It’s not bad,” she said.

Jason didn’t say anything.

“It’s all the leftover gunk in your lungs. Your body’s trying to get rid of it. But your lungs aren’t trying to shrink down around it, which is good. Are you coughing the crud up?”

He nodded miserably, still unable to get comfortable, even though he had his wedge pillow and all the other pillows and fresh sheets. She seemed to read his mind.

“The fever is low grade and you can have another ibuprofen in a half hour or so.”

“Thanks,” he said, hoarsely. “I’m okay.”

“I know. But you’re still going to get another ibuprofen. Did you eat any dinner?”

“I tried, but--”

“Leslie!” someone yelled, from the bottom of the stairs. It was him.

Jason jumped again. She pressed her lips together and he sank down a little further into the bed.

“Stay here,” she ordered. “I have to go handle this.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Sounds like Bruce tripped over his Y chromosome, I think.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Give it time,” she said dryly and handed him his tv remotes. “I’ll tell Alfred you want soup. Chicken and stars okay again?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Chicken and stars it is.”

Jason turned the TV on. The Subway Series had just started and he liked rooting for the Mets, even though they never seemed to win very much. He kept the volume low, one ear on the game, one ear towards the door. It was five minutes of baseball and coughing up gunk into tissues (he had to save them so that Dr. Leslie could see what it looked like) before he heard footsteps on the stairs. He was getting good at footsteps. These ones were the other kids followed by the bodyguard guy who was always doing karate or whatever in the backyard. Then came Hal to slip into Jason’s room.

“Are they fighting about me?” Jason asked, already knowing the answer.

“Yeah, but just a little,” Hal said, settling into his usual spot next to the bed. “There’s like five or six other things besides you.” That was the nice thing about Hal. He never lied, but he was never mean about it.

“What happened?”

“Honestly, kid? I’m not sure and I don’t really want to know. I just hope Alfred had time to hide the knives. Turn up the volume, would you? I don’t want to be an earwitness called in anyone’s defense.”

* * *

In the moment, Bruce felt very strongly that he was entirely justified in losing his temper. It had been on a low boil from the moment he’d left the hospital. Hadn’t he done the right thing? Hadn’t he let the boy stay in his house? Hadn’t he paid for every ounce of medical care? Hadn’t he agreed to acknowledge his paternity, should such paternity be proven.

He slammed the door behind him mightily, which was a habit Alfred had loathed from boyhood. Bruce hadn’t indulged in it in recent memory and it felt wonderful. Predictably, Alfred was at the kitchen counter, chopping vegetables. Hal was digging through the refrigerator, apparently oblivious. Ryan Choi was sitting at the table with Dick, Tim, and Cass, helping them with some kind of homework or game while they ate fresh cookies. All three kids were staring at Bruce in surprise and a little alarm. Suddenly the door-slamming felt less than satisfying. 

“Ryan,” Bruce said, as calmly as he could manage. “We need to have an adult discussion down here.”

“You bet,” Ryan said, with commendable situational awareness. He hustled the kids upstairs quickly, sweeping their paperwork off the table with one hand and picking up the tray of dessert with the other.

“Where is she?” Bruce demanded, as soon as they were gone. “Leslie.”

“Upstairs with Master--”

“Leslie!” he roared.

“Really,” Alfred said, sighing. “There’s no need to bellow like a wounded bull.”

Bruce only glared. Alfred only set his knife down and put his vegetables aside in anticipation of whatever contretemps was about to follow.

“For the love of God, Bruce,” Leslie muttered, descending the stairs. She traded a look with Hal that Bruce couldn’t read. Hal threw her a little salute and hustled up the stairs. Now it was only the three of them, Bruce, Alfred, and Leslie in the kitchen.

“What did you do with the test?” Bruce demanded, looking at Leslie.

“What test?”

“You know exactly what test. The paternity test you were supposed to give him.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, with an icy calm that he already associated with women doctors in America. “Do I look like Mary Sue the candystriper to you? No? Is there an MD after my name? Am I fully licensed to practice in the state of New Jersey? Then why are you trying to fuck me like I’m Mary Sue the candystriper.”

“He’s not mine!” Bruce snapped. Shame and embarrassment choked his voice. And apparently his manners. And good sense.

Alfred just wiped his hands on his apron before untying it and hanging it on his hook.

“Probably not,” Leslie agreed, crossing her arms.

“Probably?” he said, almost breathless. “Probably?”

“You’re the pathology intern, for Christ’s sake!” She uncrossed her arms and pointed an accusatory finger at him. “You never once typed his blood or asked him his birthdate.”

“But you did,” he said.

“Crystal Brown did, the day we brought him home. She told me not to look at that part of his chart. The implication was clear. So I didn’t look.” She said it with such perfect equanimity, like it wasn’t a gross violation. Like she hadn’t deliberately put a cuckoo in his nest.

“Did you know?” Bruce asked, turning on Alfred.

“Absolutely not,” Leslie snapped, before he could answer. “I didn’t disclose anything about Jason’s condition, except that he was ill, claimed to be your son, and desperately needed a place to stay.

“Oh and you were perfectly happy to stay in the dark, were you?” Bruce didn’t look away from his butler.

“Hey.” Leslie hissed at him, pulling Bruce’s attention back to her. Her gaze was clear and steady. “I know you’re almost a big boy pathologist, but you’re not fully credentialed yet. And you haven’t seen a living patient in a year or more. So let me explain how this works. I treat people that still have a pulse. And I am never, ever going to apologize for advocating for that kid. I don’t care if it pisses you off.”

“You--”

“I bought him a week in a clean house. In a good bed. With good food. And people who, up until tonight, weren’t in a hurry to give him the boot.”

“All at my expense.” God damn it, she didn’t even look ruffled. She wasn’t even blinking, the battle-axe.

“You can afford it.” 

“You can’t--” Bruce wanted to tear his hair out. “You can’t just bring every stray from Park Row to me for help.”

“Why not?” a new voice asked.

Everyone turned to look at the back door. Selina was there, toeing off her shoes beside the doormat. She was wearing a cropped black t-shirt and those boy-style jeans, cuffed at the hem, that should have been unattractive but somehow managed to emphasize the lean muscles of her hips and seat. As always, that strip of skin between the shirt hem and waist band taunted him. With effort, Bruce recalled himself to the moment.

“Selina.” He tried to order his thoughts, sorting the anger from the facts. “We were. Just. Jason isn’t mine.”

“Okay,” she shrugged with one shoulder, walking into the kitchen barefoot. She leaned over and pecked Alfred on the cheek.

“Miss Kyle,” he said. “It appears that the paternity test went astray.”

“And Bruce is having a small meltdown.”

“I hesitate to call it that.”

Selina turned toward him then, and arched a brow. He felt himself flushing, not with anger, but a little embarrassment.

“I’ll get the full chart,” Leslie said. 

The most maddening thing was that everyone else was so calm. They had…perpetrated this scheme against him. In his house. He tried to slow his breathing, to hang onto his temper. Selina went to the kitchen and fetched a diet soda. She opened it and drank from the can, which made Alfred sigh. Leslie returned with a battered legal pad, flipping to the back page.

“Huh,” she said. “Yeah, he’s definitely not your kid.”

Bitter triumph flooded him: not my kid. Definitely not.

“You can tell?” Selina asked.

“Jason’s blood type is AB- and Bruce is O+. It’s a biological impossibility.”

“I suppose,” Alfred said calmly. “That now is the time to mention that I have also been conducting a little research.” He opened the kitchen junk drawer and produced a manila envelope.

“Is anyone in this house not conspiring against me at this point?” Bruce couldn’t keep the acid out of his voice. 

At that very moment, something came sailing out of the stairwell and hit him in the head before dropping to the kitchen floor. 

“Oh dear,” Alfred said, bending down to pick it up.

Leslie gasped and reached past him for it, glancing at the label before showing it to Bruce. It was a FedEx envelope addressed to their private testing laboratory of choice. They all turned towards the source of the missile.

“Oops,” Cass said, in a tiny voice.

Everyone froze, staring at the little girl on the stairs. She and her Rebecca doll were wearing matching Edwardian dresses in purple. She and her doll looked equally expressive, at that moment. Then Cass shrugged with one shoulder, in a perfect imitation of Selina, turned on her heel and bolted back up the stairs.

“Oh my,” Alfred said, looking suddenly misty.

“Did she just…” Selina trailed off.

“She did.” Leslie confirmed. “I’ll be damned.”

“Cass.” Bruce moved towards the stairwell.

“Wait,” Selina said, reaching out to grab his hand. “Wait just a couple minutes.”

“I can’t--”

“Bruce.” Then she dropped her voice so only he could hear. “Bat. You’re about five seconds from blowing your top again. And you need to finish this.”

He ground his teeth. And nodded. At the counter, Alfred was opening the envelope.

“What is that?” Bruce demanded. He knew he wasn’t moderating his tone well. But he also hadn’t broken anything yet, which was good. And Cass had just spoken, with her voice.

“This,” Alfred said, “is a preliminary important compiled by an inquiry agent I hired the day after Master Jason joined us.”

“You called a P.I.” Leslie sounded skeptical.

“Primary investigator?” Bruce was confused. What kind of study could Jason already be involved with?

“A private eye,” Selina said, a little exasperated. “Really, Alfred?”

“He came highly recommended. Apparently he was once a respected member of the Gotham PD.”

Leslie snorted. “There’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.”

“Quite,” Alfred agreed. “I gather he was...encouraged to retire early after reporting one of his superiors to an ethics board.”

“Not Jim Gordon?” Leslie said, her tone changing abruptly to one of respect. “That was quite the shit storm he kicked up.”

“The very one,” Alfred confirmed, handing the envelope to Bruce. “I will summarize. Jason’s mother, Catherine Todd, was found deceased on her kitchen floor. Her heroin had apparently been laced with fentanyl at some point in its manufacture and distribution. Her son found her and rang the authorities. He ran when it was clear that she could not be revived.”

It came to Bruce in a flash then: a boy kneeling next to his mother’s cooling body. In his mind’s eye, he saw a linoleum floor, but he also couldn’t shake the feel of ghostly rain on his face, wet red hair in his fingers.

“According to her post-mortem documentation, her blood type was O-.” That brought him sharply back to the present.

“Catherine Todd wasn’t his real mother,” Bruce said flatly. “Who is?”

“Detective Gordon is looking into the matter further. But there is something else.”

“Oh God, what now,” Leslie said.

“Jason’s father, one Willis Todd--type AB negative mind you--is currently in prison, serving several consecutive fraud and theft sentences. It is highly unlikely he’ll be released before Jason reaches the age of majority.”

“And?” Selina asked.

“Yes. Well.” Alfred cleared his throat. “As it happens, he was tried and sentenced for crimes that, according to his defense, he committed at the bidding of his employer, Harvey Dent.”

“His what? Harvey?” Bruce asked, taken aback.

“He was, for lack of a better word, Harvey’s bag man,” Alfred confirmed.

“And Harvey is in a humane private residential treatment center,” Leslie said, cutting directly to the point as usual. “While Willis Todd is in Blackgate for the next fifteen to twenty.”

“Why don’t we sit down,” Alfred suggested gently. Bruce was happy to comply. He felt...poleaxed. His anger had evaporated like rubbing alcohol, with the same chilly sensation.

“I didn’t want Harvey to go to trial,” he said. “But I didn’t know there was anything beyond the...malpractice. I didn’t know about any accomplices.”

“I know,” Selina said, taking a seat beside him.

“I told the DA I didn’t want him to go to jail. I didn’t know they’d throw the book at someone else.”

“Mr. Todd is no babe in the woods,” Alfred assured him, tapping the envelope. “He has plenty of criminal experience, past and present, to justify his sentence. But nothing out of the common way until Harvey.”

“Now what?” Leslie said, joining them with a decanter of whiskey and several glasses. She poured drinks, adding liquor straight to Selina’s soda, making Alfred sigh again at the profound lack of decorum.

“Now we drink some whiskey,” Selina said.

“I said a week.” Bruce knocked his drink back and Leslie poured him another.

“That leaves you almost thirty six hours,” Alfred observed.

“It’s an artificial deadline.” Leslie topped them all up again.

“I said a week.” Bruce glared at his drink, sipping more slowly.

“You did,” Selina affirmed, patting his hand with sympathy.

“I made a friend at work,” Bruce said, apropos of nothing. “She’s coming over for dinner next week.”

Alfred squeaked. There was no other word for the sound.

“Whatever night works best. No food restrictions.”

Alfred put his hand to his throat.

“She’s bringing her partner, Steve, who has no preferences and a healthy appetite.”

“My word.” The butler rose. “I need to begin the menu at once. I believe the butter lettuce will be just ripe enough. And the corn. I’ll have to ring May-Belle and see if she has fresh cherries. A tart perhaps…”

“Clafoutis?” Bruce suggested.

“Yes, of course. Cherry clafoutis. We shall let that guide our flavor profile. I need to visit the cellars.”

“There goes my evening,” Leslie muttered.

“Good job, Bat,” Selina whispered. “I’m going to go upstairs and make sure Cass hasn’t flown the coop. Come up when you’re ready, okay? I can run interference til then.”

“I owe you,” he said.

“This one’s on the house,” she said, and leaned down to kiss the top of his head in front of God and Leslie Thompkins. Then she made her silent way up the stairs.

“Sorry I yelled,” Bruce said. 

“No you’re not,” Leslie replied, pouring several fingers of whiskey for herself.

“I am. I was just so…”

“Royally pissed?”

“Maybe a little.”

“I pulled a fast one on you,” she admitted, leaning back in her chair and pushing a hand through her steel-gray hair. “And Alfred. I didn’t leave him any choice, you should know that. I would never, ever trespass on your relationship.”

“I know that.” He looked down at his drink, eyes burning.

“Okay. I’m going to pour myself a little more whiskey and then I’m taking the rest of the cookies to bed. Don’t bother me unless there’s arterial bleeding.”

He raised his glass and she clinked hers against it gently before standing up picking the baking sheet clean of cookies. Bruce kept his head down and focused on his drink. He heard Alfred puttering around him, a familiar and comforting buffer. He opened and closed cookbooks and made notes and spoke under his breath about seating arrangements. Bruce thought about Harvey and he thought about Willis Todd, who was obviously a criminal, but was just as obviously a father. What would it feel like, to be behind bars, knowing your kid was out there. Alone. In the system.

Eventually, the kitchen was dark and quiet, and Alfred touched him on the shoulder shoulder briefly, and then followed Leslie to bed.

Bruce continued sipping his whiskey in the twilight and then in the dark. And by the time he was ready to go to bed, it just seemed like an awful lot fo trouble climbing the stairs. So he just leaned forward over the table and put his head down on his crossed arms.

* * *

It was the coughing that woke him, in the small hours of the morning. Bruce pried one eye open and then the other before sitting up. He wasn’t precisely drunk, but he was not entirely sure of his balance as he pushed himself up and lurched towards the stairs. He climbed them, gaining momentum and proprioception as he went. In the hall, several small LED nightlights lit the floorboards to illuminate the runner. He paused outside the closest door, listening. It was the boy, Jason, as he’d suspected.

“Knock knock,” Bruce said out loud, before he caught himself. It was happening. Not even thirty. Not even Mormon. Wearing bathrobes and saying knock knock instead of knocking. He was turning into someone’s Dad. Several someones’ Dad. Bruce shoved the thought away and entered the room. 

In the window the moon was full and a soft lamp next to the bed illuminated its occupant. The boy was propped up on his side. In the queen bed, he looked small and bony, his face still a little hollow. And that boy’s dad was in a concrete cell block.

“Sorry,” Jason said, wiping his mouth on the sleeve of his Captain America pajamas. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Bruce approached slowly. “Lungs playing up?”

“No. Yes. No.” The boy leaned back on his wedge and his pillows, looking a little sweaty. “It’s just the gunk.”

“The gunk?” Bruce put his hands in his pockets.

“That’s what Doctor Leslie called it.”

“Ah.” Acute bronchitis, he translated. “Do you mind if I have a listen?”

“Free country.” Jason sounded tired.

“Sure, but the lungs belong to you.”

“Yeah, you can have a listen.”

Bruce snagged the stethoscope off of Jason’s table and reassured himself. Jason was right. It was just the gunk. He picked up the ear thermometer next and showed it to Jason, who nodded. 100.1.

“Your temperature is back up a little.”

“I thought I was getting better,” Jason whispered.

“You are,” Bruce assured him immediately. “A couple more days and this will just be a normal cough.”

“I’ve been coughing for like two months.” His voice was high and thin and Bruce could now recognize the signs that he was near tears. “Like two months.”

“I know,” Bruce said, thinking of this hungry little boy sleeping in parks and in doorways and abandoned buildings in the Narrows and Bowery and Park Row. “I know. Hey, it’s alright.” Jason was crying, small tears from the corners of his eyes. Bruce fought the urge to turn and run for Alfred. For help. For an adult. “This won’t last forever. This is just for now.”

“I don’t feel good,” Jason said, furiously wiping his nose and eyes. “It’s just that I don’t feel good.”

“I know, I know,” Bruce reached out and brushed the boy’s sweaty hair away from his forehead. “It’s getting better, though.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s just. I haven’t felt good in a really long time.”

“I’m sorry.” He swallowed, with effort. “I’m going to go get some pills and some orange juice.”

“Okay.”

Acetaminophen and cold OJ were what Bruce brought back, along with some Ritz crackers. Jason nibbled one or two without interest, then took the pills. He drank the juice, though, which was good. Mission accomplished. Bruce found himself shifting his weight on his feet.

“You’re leaving.” It didn’t even come across as a question.

“I--” His brain shorted out a little. Thanks, whiskey. “I was going to get a book to read. Maybe from the library.”

“I have a book.”

“Oh.” Bruce picked up the copy of  _ The Cold Dish _ . “I haven’t read this one.” 

“It’s good,” Jason said. “It’s about a Sheriff. Way out west. And all these bad guys keep dying. And he has to catch whoever’s killing them, even though they’re awful.”

“Sounds good.”

“Yeah.”

“I, uh.” Jesus Christ, Bruce, think. “Do you mind if I start at the beginning?”

* * *

Selina woke up when Bruce slid into bed. He was nude, which meant he had probably been drinking and forgot he wore pajamas now. He smelled like toothpaste and, yes, whiskey. 

“How you doing?” she murmured, rolling over to face him. 

“Hnn.”

“That good?” she brushed his dark hair away from his face. 

“Hrm.”

“If you decided to let Jason stay, even just for a while, it would be different.”

“Different,” he said softly.

“It would be different this time,” she whispered. “Because you would be choosing this time.”

“Hnn.”

Selina scooted forward--she at least was wearing a nightgown--and kissed him between his eyebrows. He was already starting to slide towards sleep, his face starting to look younger and less worn. She felt her heart do something strange and painful inside her chest. She didn’t like it, but she also didn’t want it to stop.

“Night night, Bat.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I very vaguely based the Kane/Cano family history on the great de Camondo family, a Sephardic family that survived the Inquisition, built a banking dynasty, and settled in Paris. The de Camondo heirs did nor survive the Shoah. The eldest son, Nissim, was in the French air force and died in aerial combat in WWI. His father, the patriarch the Comte Moïse de Camondo, named Musée Nissim de Camondo after him. His only other child, Béatrice, married a composer named Léon Reinach, divorced him, and converted to Catholicism. She thought that her Catholic faith and connections to wealthy goyim would protect her, but she and her two children were taken to Drancy and then to Auschwitz where they were murdered.
> 
> The Vel d'Hiv was an indoor cycling track where French police brought French Jews before deporatation and murder. The most infamous roundup was in the summer of 1942, but there were others. 
> 
> All the things in the gallery are based on real items in Jewish museums, some from the Musée Nissim de Camondo. 
> 
> Kiddush cup, early 1700's: https://collections.mfa.org/objects/565253/kiddush-cup?ctx=0b0c8328-c56a-4a9b-abbf-a3e45c4d47b4&idx=49
> 
> Italian ketubah, 1793: https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/26266-marriage-contract
> 
> Sèvres sugar bowl: http://collections.madparis.fr/pot-a-sucre-calabre-2eme-grandeur-0
> 
> Bath-Sheba Mourns Her Husband, 1896-1902: https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/26533-bath-sheba-mourns-her-husband
> 
> Hanukkah Lamp, 17th century: https://collections.mfa.org/objects/565286/hanukkah-lamp?ctx=3590c66a-4a45-40e7-807f-5a189da53d32&idx=26
> 
> A stuffed bear, c. 1935: http://collections.madparis.fr/ours-45


	7. Day Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce was tired, mildly hungover, and his breath smelled like something he’d normally put on a slide and into an incubator to monitor for bacterial growth.

Bruce was tired, mildly hungover, and his breath smelled like something he’d normally put on a slide and into an incubator to monitor for bacterial growth. The sun hadn’t even properly risen yet and his day had already gone to hell. He’d woken up far too early, with a sour stomach. His kids were all sleeping in Tim’s bed, probably because they were frightened because Bruce had lost his temper last night and yelled. And slammed the door. Cass had spoken, but she’d also thrown something directly at his head. Alfred and Leslie were patiently waiting for him to do The Right Thing with regards to the urchin upstairs, but no one would tell him what the Right Thing was this time. Not even Selina, who he now realized had begun college classes and not only had he missed that small detail, she must have been actively keeping that part of her life separate from him. Probably because he was a terrible person who slammed doors and scared children.

And he’d forgotten to brush his teeth because he’d been on the phone with Rachel Dawes while he got dressed in a dark bathroom.

“Mr. Wayne it is four am,” she’d said, completely devoid of judgement.

“Yes. I need a favor.”

“Jesus Christ,” she’d breathed out. “What now?”

Bruce had paused, not sure how to put it.

“Is someone dead?” Rachel had been immediately awake and alert. “Don’t tell me anything else. Is somebody dead though?”

“No!” he said. “No, I just. I think I need you to bribe some people.”

“Oh fuck,” she had sighed. “You scared me. Next time lead with that.”

“Why did you think someone was dead?”

“This is Gotham. Four in the morning should be class A felonies only, Mr. Wayne.”

And now he was in his car, with a rapidly cooling cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, preparing himself for what had to be one of the top ten worst decisions he had ever made in his life. And he was a man with three only recently discovered biological children by different mothers. Bruce concentrated on finishing the coffee as he drove. It wouldn’t be allowed inside.

Bruce Wayne passed through the gates of Blackgate prison, parked, entered, was searched, screened, and then led into a large, empty visiting room that felt like a cross between a bad cafeteria and something from  _ Shawshank Redemption _ . When the door shut, buzzed, and audible locked, Bruce felt his heart rate pick up, but he made himself walk to one of the low, fused, bolted down pieces of industrial furniture and sit.

“Hands on the table,” the guard behind several layers of bulletproof material reminded him.

Then there was another buzz, click, and Willis Todd walked in. There was a guard with him, who led him over to the table, roughly deposited him in it, and then took himself off to the other side of the room. Bruce wasn’t tracking him, keeping his eyes on Willis only. 

“I’ll be damned,” the other man said. He was about Bruce’s size, but stockier. Sturdier, maybe. He had black hair and a face that had taken its fair share of abuse. He also looked smart, like he was already calculating what could have happened to bring this meeting about. Shrewd. That was the word.

“Mr. Todd,” Bruce said, resisting the urge to stand and shake the other man’s hand over the stainless steel table, as though this were a formal post-mortem or a business meeting.

“Mr. Wayne,” Todd said. He was an excellent mimic.

Bruce struggled for words. He’d rehearsed all possible scenarios on the drive up, but his prepared scripts had deserted him. Across the table, the other man’s posture changed, becoming even less congenial and even more menacing. 

“So?” Todd asked, lifting a dark eyebrow. “What the fuck do you want?”

“I want to talk about Jason.”

“The fuck,” Willis breathed out. “The fuck do you know about Jason.”

“Ah. Well. He turned up last week claiming to be my biological child.”

“He did?” Willis gave a hoot of laughter, something like relief and then pleasure moving across his face. “I told him to try that. I told him, after your first kid turned up, I told Jason if he ever got picked up for shoplifting. Tell them you’re Wayne’s kid.”

“And so he did.” Bruce drummed his fingers.

“Yeah, well, you obviously did the math.” Willis eyed Bruce’s hands. “How is he?”

“He’s doing well enough now. When he was first located, his physician nearly had to hospitalize him. He’s been recovering for a week from an asthma attack that almost killed him.”

“Jesus Christ.” Willi’s face got harder. “Where the fuck was he? Those cunts at DCFS wouldn’t tell me where he was.”

“Have you tried not calling them cunts?” Bruce asked, before he could stop himself. He just...hated that word.

Willis actually laughed again. “No, not really.” He lapsed into silence, steady and expectant.

“I can tell you what I believe happened,” Bruce offered. “I believe after Catherine overdosed, Jason escaped Family Services and started sleeping rough. His physician performed a preliminary allergy test and he doesn’t appear to react to anything other than mold and cockroaches. And then last week--”

“The thunderstorm. The asthma never really bothered him, you know, once I got the inhaler. Except for the storms. No one knows why.”

“Well--” Bruce bit his own tongue to keep himself from expounding on new additions to pulmonology literature. “At any rate. Having claimed me as a parent, and absent any proof to the contrary, he’s been staying with me.”

“No proof? You didn’t check his blood type?” Willis asked, looking at Bruce like he was about as smart as linoleum.

“I. Did not.”

“For fuck’s sake. Even I know about his blood type.”

“And then Harvey,” Bruce posited, quashing his internal frustration.

“Harvey.” Willis sneered. “I worked for him for two years and I only ever knew him as Dent. Not Mister. Not Harvey. Just Dent. I knew right away he wasn’t quite right, you know, upstairs. But I’ve worked for crazy before. I thought I could handle it. And the money.”

“Was good.”

“I was a grand away from getting Catherine three months of residential rehab. A good one. Not, like, cushy. But good. Real nurses and counselors and shit.” Todd’s face betrayed a certain bleakness that was the closest thing to an authentic expression he’d shown. “I knew she’d go. And she’d stay, too, even if it was just for Jason. It would have given her a fighting chance.”

“It would,” Bruce said evenly.

Something dark twisted across Willis Todd’s face and wiped all the authenticity away.

“It wasn’t her fault,” Bruce said and Todd snorted derisively. “No, I mean, the heroin. The batch. She would have thought she was using a moderate amount. A safe amount, if you will. But it was laced. Fentanyl.”

“Fast. At least. Jesus.” Todd stared at his hands with a completely flat affect. “Catherine. And he was there.”

“Not at the time, or at least, not as far as I can tell. But he did find her afterward.”

“Is that better?” the man in the jumpsuit asked.

“Yes,” Bruce answered. “It is.”

“Yeah,” Todd met his eyes. “Yeah, okay.” He exhaled. “So what the fuck do you want with Jason?”

“Well, I was rather hoping to discuss that with you.”

“Oh really.”

“I…” Bruce unclenched his jaw, shifted it from side to side, then tried again. “I regret. That I didn’t know, when I told the DA I didn’t want them to prosecute Harvey. I regret that I didn’t realized there would have to be someone to take the blame. I didn’t understand the scope of the scandal. Or the pressure the authorities were under to resolve the case. That’s my fault.”

“It’s a little late.” Willis looked sardonic and unimpressed. “But I did what I did. And I wasn’t Dent, the fucking soup sandwich. I knew what I was doing”

“Still. This is a kind of restitution I can offer you.”

“It’s charity.” Todd spat the word back at him.

“It’s justice. And it’s for your son.” There followed a long silence that Bruce refused to break. Not just out of sheer stubbornness, but also because this would never work if Todd didn’t agree. It went on. Sweat was beading and gathering at the small of Bruce’s back. He refused to move. The clock ticked on, approaching the end of the time that Rachel Dawes had bought for the two of them to speak in some kind of privacy.

“My son was born the night of the blackout riots. Do you remember that?”

“I was abroad.” Bruce had no idea where this was going. It seemed rather a left turn from the topic of conversation.

“It was so dark. I called 9-1-1, when I realized that...well. He got born. Anyway, I took him up to the roof. You could see stars like...like I never seen before in the city. I told him he was going to be a Prince of Gotham someday. Not your kind,” he said to Bruce with derision. “A real Gotham kid.”

“You know his birth mother, then.”

“Yeah. And no, I’m not going to tell you shit about her. Bitch literally pushed him out and bailed.”

“Okay,” Bruce said, when it became clear he’d have to say something before the other man continued.

“We could hear sirens from the roof, me and him. The fires weren’t bad yet, but you could smell tires burning. And I just thought, this is it. This is my son. This is our city.”

Bruce had no idea what to say to that. He felt like the moment balanced on a knife’s edge and under those circumstances, silence had always served him best. After a minute, Todd’s eyes focused again on the here and now.

“I don’t want him in the system.” 

“Done.” Bruce’s answer was immediate. And relieved.

“I want him to write to me.”

“Only if he wants. And I’m going to read every word you write back before he does.”

“I don’t want him to go to some rich kid school.”

“He’ll go to the school that suits him best.” 

“I don’t want.” Todd’s nostrils flared with sudden anger. But he stopped there.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Bruce pointed out.

“I don’t want him to be the poor kid in your house. I don’t want him to be treated too different.”

“He will not be at any material disadvantage..”

“I want him to write to me,” Todd repeated.

“I know,” Bruce said.

“Don’t fuck this up,” Willis said, a warning full of more emotion than the last twenty minutes combined. “You hear me, Wayne? Don’t fuck it up.”

“I hear you.”   


* * *

Harley Quinzel was under no illusions about herself. She was a decorated collegiate gymnast, a big sister to three absolute shithead brothers, a certified pilates instructor, a bat mitzvah, and almost a PsyD. She was kind, spontaneous, generous, and funny. She was also deeply, deeply fucked up.

Exhaling unsteadily, she stared into her matcha latte, admiring the little diamond shape the barista had made in the foam. She wished the mug were full of absinthe instead. But, no. She’d had her little half-dose benzo in anticipation of this conversation. It didn’t seem to be helping much, but she’d only puked once from nerves since she’d taken it, and then only because she couldn’t find parking. Pretty good by Harley standards.

The thing was that there was a level of fucked up where therapy and drugs weren’t optional, but necessary. And they weren’t even foolproof. They were just a tourniquet on a psychic wound that was forever in danger of bleeding her out.

Harley could not be fixed, not really. And she was getting her doctorate degree mostly to prove it. Grimly, she sipped the latte. It was delicious. Not real milk, of course. Pam had suggested yet another vegan place. Was this the first sign? Was Harley already letting Pam make decisions for her? Was this the slippery slope of abdication and abuse?

“No,” she muttered. “It is a fucking oatmilk latte. Get your shit together, Quinzel.” She rehearsed again the script she was going to use with Pam. It was appropriate, respectful, and just honest enough. The kind of thing she used with patients all the time.

But then Pamela was in the cafe. She was wearing skinny jeans and tank top the color of new moss. Her hair was in a careless French braid and the end of it lay over her shoulder and down the slope of the top of her breast in the tank top the color of new moss. There were, Gd have mercy, freckles on her shoulder and her collarbone. Her skinny jeans. Her ass. Her thighs looked. They looked soft and inviting under the denim. Harley wondered if they’d feel soft on her cheeks.

Panicked, Harley looked down. She was wearing leopard-print Doc-Martens and a black and white striped sundress that now seemed only to highlight her lack of womanly anything. She could see the straps of her hot pink bra. Had she remembered to put on her hot underwear? Fuck, she hadn’t. This was a disaster. She was a disaster. 

“Hi, Harley.” Then Pam was sitting across from her, with an enormous mug of hot tea of some unknown herbal origin. The freckles. The braid. The tank top the color of new moss.

“You’re so pretty,” Harley whispered.

“Oh.” Pam smiled and...blushed. Fuck. She was blushing under some of the face freckles. “Thank you.”

“Listen.” Harley grabbed desperately for the steering wheel of her brain. “I want to have date-coffee with you. But first. Listen. I have to say. Some things.”

“Okay.” Pam nodded.

“And then we can keep having coffee or we can. You know. Not.”

“Okay,” Pam said again, and sat back in her chair. She didn’t look alarmed. Yet.

“So, uh.” Harley took a breath. “I’m going to tell you a little story.”

“I’m ready.”

“Once upon a time in...well. Brooklyn. There was a little girl.” Harley put her mug down and laced her fingers together. “And her family was normal and very nice and that part was fine. And then one day, she was out in the forests of, uh, Red Hook. And she met a big bad wolf.” She glanced up at Pam, who looked concerned, but not horrified. Harley wondered if she was being too allegorical. “A bad wolf.”

“A bad one,” Pam confirmed and sipped her tea like this was normal first date fare.

“And it was bad. But she lived. And ever since then, this little girl keeps ending up with wolves. Like, she goes out in the forest looking for, um…”

“Berries?” Pam suggested.

“Berries! Yes. And instead of berries, she always ends up going home with a wolf.” Harley said. And she could feel the fear sweat in her armpits and the small of her back and behind her knees. But she’d done it. She’d said it out loud. Mostly.

“Hmm.” Pamela sipped her tea again and looked out the window at the passing foot traffic. After a long moment, she turned back. “Can I tell you a story, too?”

“Sure,” Harley said, confused. This was not part of the plan. The plan was to make her weird little confession and then either Pam would pretend it had never happened or Pam would politely bail. Pam didn’t know her lines.

“Once upon a time in Eden--Eden, Vermont that is--there was a little girl who lived on a farm. And she and her mother grew all kinds of things to eat and flowers to sell to tourists.” Pam’s voice was sweet and low. “Her father was supposed to be a wilderness guide who helped rich men from New York City hunt animals for fun. And he did that during the day. But at night, he was a wolf. And nobody knew but this little girl and her mother and their garden.”

Harley leaned forward on her seat, her own anxiety abandoned in the compulsion to listen.

“One day, the little girl came home and found that the wolf had eaten her mother. And it was bad. But she lived. And she grew up and now, in her spare time, she hunts wolves. For fun.”

“Pamela,” Harley whispered. “Take me to dinner.”

“With pleasure.”

* * *

Bettie Page was in her little soft-sided carrier and she was not happy about it. Leslie had given her approval for the cat to return to Bruce’s house, and Bettie would be happy enough once she was there. But just at the moment, she was giving Selina her best death glare. It didn’t look that much different from her normal face, but Selina had a sense for these things now. Luckily, she and Bettie Page didn’t have to wait too long for their ride.

“I’m worried about the kids,” Bruce said, about thirty seconds after he pulled away from the curb. He was wearing clean scrubs, which meant at some point in his shift his scrubs had needed changing. She tried not to think about it.

“I heard they broke Hal,” Selina said eagerly, “but Alfred won’t tell me how.” In her lap, Bettie page settled down to sulk.

“Cassandra is approximately 50% Japanese and 25% Sephardic. She stopped producing lactase five minutes after she was weaned.”

“Oh no,” Selina breathed out. “He didn’t.”

“There was a milkshake. The boys watched Hal buy it and watched her drink it. Alfred says I have to sell the Land Rover. He’ll never get the smell out. Is that normal?”

“No, it’s not,” she said, covering her eyes with her hands.

“I don’t mean the lactose intolerance. That’s, uh, clinically significant, but not abnormal. I mean the boys’ using their sister as a biological weapon.”

“That’s certainly one way to phrase it.” Selina uncovered her eyes and looked at him. “I think it’s more like the three of them joined forces to gas Hal. It’s more like teamwork.”

“So it’s a good sign.”

“Well it’s not a WMD. Bruce, you have your thinking face on and I know the turnpike is straight all the way home.”

“I’m an only child.”

“Yeah.” With effort, she kept herself from adding: no shit.

“Even before my parents died, I was kind of a loner. Other kids were always a mystery to me. Other people. Sometimes, what they do is perfectly clear. Perfectly reasonable. But sometimes, I understand none of it. I know you do. I know you make it look easy.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” Selina said.

“I think you’re just better at it, too. Internally. Do you ever...cry?”

“Yes?” Selina ventured.

“I don’t. Not since I was a child.” He chewed his lip. “What do you think about when you cry?”

“Elephants,” she said.

“What about them?”

“When they find the bones-- Bruce, are you...trying to make me cry?”

“I’m trying to understand. I know it’s a parasympathetic response. I just don’t--elephants?”

“Bat,” she sighed and patted his hand fondly where it rested on the gear stick. “Listen to me. You are not emotionally broken. You do have feelings. You are not like the man you saw in prison today.”

“What?”

“I was a stripper for years, Bruce. At good clubs. The best clubs. I have seen more rich white boy emotional crises than anyone except for other strippers and select divorce attorneys.”

“Oh.”

“It’s true that you...have not built fluency yet, as far as feelings go. But also you were raised by a man who can only express his affection with live poultry and smoothies.”

Bruce frowned slightly, as though this were occurring to him for the first time. Selina imagined herself banging her head into the dashboard over and over until the desire to just knock him upside the head passed.

“And maybe, yes, you take a little longer than some people to process emotions.”

“I know that,” he said, a little more sharply than she expected.

“But that doesn’t mean that you’re doing a bad job,” Selina pointed out. “You have to meet the kids’ first needs first. And you’re doing that.”

“Food, water, shelter,” he said dryly. “Yes, it’s challenging.”

“Hey. Don’t forget safety,” she said, trying to set aside the old resentment. Only a rich kid had never worn dirty clothes to school could say food, water, shelter, like it was nothing. Bruce was looking at her. “Don’t look at me like that, Harley’s making me read all kinds of shit. I can’t tell if it’s a hint or if she’s just trying to clear her bookshelves.” 

“Do you think that they know?” he asked. “That I...like them living with me?” He didn’t sound insecure. More like curious. Or concerned.

“Bruce.” Selina heaved a sigh. “Have you ever heard of the five love languages?”

“Spanish, Portugeuse, French--”

Selina elbowed him irritably across the console. “Love. Not Romance.”

“No,” he admitted. “I have not.”

“Well Harley gave me the book and I skimmed the table of contents and the first chapter and it seems pretty asinine, but consider the premise, if you will.”

“I will.”

“The gist is that everyone best expresses and best feels love, or affection, in different ways. Alfred, for example, could probably be said to express his love best with acts of service.”

“Hm.” Bruce grunted.

“And how do you express your love for Alfred?” she asked, amused to see Bruce’s discomfort at the notion. It was the same face Selina made when she tried to do long division without a calculator. 

“Alfred knows I...do.”

“And how does he know that?” Jesus Christ. It was like leading a drunk puppy through a mine field.

“I bought him a villa on the French Riviera. And an Aston Martin DB5 shooting-brake.”

“Gifts are another one of the languages that the author identifies.” Selina stopped. Waited for the penny to drop

“Oh.”

“But I think, in this case, with the kids, you might want to try words.”

“Words.”

“Yes. You might want to say the words to them. That you like them living with you.”

“I do like them living with me,” he said.

“Then I think you can probably pull it off.” 

“What is yours?”

“My what?”

“Your language.”

“Touch, probably,” she said, eyes darting involuntarily to his big hands on the steering wheel. Then quickly added, “but I like gifts, too.”

“Good. I bought you something.”

“You did?” She sat up straighter in her seat. “Can I have it?”

“It’s at the house waiting for you,” Bruce said, smiling. “Alfred signed for it earlier today. But you have to get through family dinner first.”

“Okay. What’s for dinner?”

“I have no idea. But Alfred has made it known that he is no longer willing to tolerate eating with ‘a pack of children who behave as though they were raised by wolves’ without my assistance.”

Bettie Page began to purr.

* * *

Dinner was the usual barely-leashed chaos, as Alfred had come to expect. He thought, wistfully, of the days when he had had the house to himself. When he could savor a charcuterie and a glass of pinot noir. Or, even more pleasant, something fresh and grilled and served en plein air with Leslie. From time to time he had even brought out some of the Wayne family’s fine china.

Alas. Those days were gone.

Dick himself had been quite a disorderly enough addition to table. He seemed to neither stop eating nor stop speaking for however long it took him to eat at least three servings of everything. By comparison, Timothy was quite civilized, but distracting in his own way. Alfred found himself making constant inventory of his plate and finding his own cooking skills wanting. Timothy usually found something to eat, but never with much enthusiasm. The arrival of Miss Cassandra, however, had brought the greatest challenge yet to Alfred’s not inconsiderable reserves of poise and ingenuity. 

She was, frankly, an agent of chaos. It was clear to him, if not to Master Bruce, that she had been neglected a great deal in her short life. She preferred to eat with her hands and was prone to treat her utensils as artillery. At the end of any meal, it was questionable whether nutritious food of any quantity had been consumed. She preferred sweets and always made it appear that her vegetables had been eaten, to ensure access to dessert. More than once in the last week, Alfred had found a moldy pile of green beans secreted in a kitchen cabinet.

Tonight, he had attempted a compromise: sweet potato casserole. It was an appalling recipe, and he had made what substitutions he could. The marshmallows were a test of his fortitude, but he persevered. And in the end, he watched Cassandra spear every last bite and ask for seconds. Alfred smiled to himself, cutting another piece of chicken, and comforted himself in the knowledge that there was far more Vitamin A in the horrifying concoction than she could know.

“Vegetables with marshmallows?” Bruce had muttered, watching it come out of the oven. “I didn’t even get dessert when I was her age.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Alfred had replied tartly. “You had a very fine birthday cake every year. There is a good Chardonnay chilling for you, me, and Miss Kyle. Be so good as to open it and let it breathe.”

As always, Dick cleaned his plate. Timothy ate a few bites of perfectly cubed chicken and every cherry tomato on his salad, neatly halved, with salt and absolutely nothing else. Alfred rose halfway through his own meal, returning to the counter to make a small plate of additional chicken and cherry tomatoes. This he brought back and set next to Timothy without comment. It took the boy a few minutes to notice the arrival of this largesse and then, startled by the appearance, turned to Alfred with a shy smile.

Alfred resolved to learn to grow cherry tomatoes year round in the greenhouse. He had seen hydroponic systems for sale and was sure he could improve upon the design. Across the table, Miss Kyle was looking at him slyly as she took a bite of marshmallow. Alfred lifted his chin and tried to redirect his attention to Dick, who was sharing some anecdote about Miss Kendra’s lessons on Egyptology.

“And some people think the pyramids were built by aliens, but Kendra says that’s races.”

“Racist,” Tim supplied quietly.

“Racist,” Dick repeated. “Because the Egyptians were better at everything and white people are still mad about it.”

Alfred swallowed with difficulty. He chanced a look at Bruce, who was nodding placidly. Not a good sign. Bruce had never had his mother’s knack at guiding a conversation.

“The oldest known manual for trauma surgery is Egyptian,” Bruce said, cutting into a second chicken breast. “It includes prescriptions for how to prevent infections with preparations of--”

“No medicine at the dinner table,” Alfred said immediately. That way lay madness. Quickly, he redirected. “How was your day, Miss Kyle?”

“I had class this morning,” she said, eyes sparkling ominously, “and then I went Pilates with Harley. She’s in knots because she’s getting ready to have a conversation with the girl she has a crush on. Then Bruce picked me up. And Bettie Page too, of course.”

“Girls have crushes on girls?” Dick asked.

“It’s called gay,” Tim said, “but for girls I think it’s called Lebanese.”

_ Kitty? _ signed Cass.  _ Here? _

“Class?” Bruce asked. “What class?”

“Harley’s a Lebanese?” Dick asked.

“What class?” Bruce repeated.

“Ow!” Dick said, putting a hand to his eye. “Cass!” 

Cass only smiled to herself, busily loading another cherry tomato onto her spoon.

“No!” Tim said, alarmed but also trying not to laugh. “Don’t do it!” The tomato hit him directly between the eyes and he shrieked, teetered, then fell off his chair sideways. 

“This is fun,” Selina said, and took another bite of marshmallow. “Great sweet potatoes, Alfred.”

He poured himself another glass of wine.

* * *

Jason was waiting, chewing nervously on his thumbnail. After lunch, Hal had said that Alfred had said that Leslie had said Jason could come down for dinner. Jason had lied and said he was tired. Now, though, he wasn’t sure. He didn’t want to be down there with them, but he didn’t want to be up here with himself either. The food smelled good, but it was more about what he could hear, indistinct and vibrant.

Dick and Tim were laughing and Alfred was admonishing someone. There was a sharp shriek of laughter, which didn’t sound like Leslie, so it must be Selina. A clattering noise, like someone had dropped a plate in the sink. More laughing.

Jason turned his TV back on and turned up the volume. The episode he was on was kind of scary, but not like the ones with the firefights. One of the human-type Cylons had been captured and he was being an asshole about it to Starbuck, who was still Jason’s favorite. He was starting to wonder what cigars tasted like.

“What is the most basic article of faith?” the Cylon was asking. “This is not all that we are. The difference between you and me is, I know what that means and you don’t. A part of me swims in the stream. But in truth, I’m standing on the shore.”

Jason frowned. He was going to have to watch this episode at least one more time before he got all of it. If he asked for a dictionary, someone would probably give him one.

“Human beings have to suffer,” Starbuck said, “and cry, and scream, and endure, because they have no choice.”

Jason pulled out a pack of cards from the little table beside his bed and started a game of solitaire. Alfred had taught him a new variation a couple days ago, when Jason was tired of reading and TV, but too uncomfortable to sleep. It was nice, the way you could play with one part of your brain while the other was still listening. But he fumbled and dropped them a few minutes later.

“You’re damaged,” the Cylon said on screen. “It surrounds you like a bubble. But it’s not real. It’s something you want to believe because it means that you’re the problem, not the world that you live in. You want to believe it, because it means you’re bad luck.”

Jason tried to pick the cards back up, but his fingers were suddenly clumsy, sticky. 

The episode ended with the President (Jason couldn’t decide if he liked her or not) putting the Cylon out of the airlock. Then Starbuck prayed? Jason didn’t get it. He finished his game and started the episode over and dealt himself another hand. He’d just gotten back to the part where the Cylon said he was looking forward to talking to Starbuck when someone knocked on his door.

“Yeah?” Jason said.

“May I come in?” said a deep voice, still outside. Bruce. 

“Yeah.” Jason paused the show.

“Good evening,” Bruce said, as he stepped inside. He was wearing his black scrubs and looking a little embarrassed. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“No,” Jason said, setting his cards down and wiping his palms down the thighs of his sweatpants. “I was just watching this one again.”

“Again?” Bruce asked, settling himself in the chair beside the bed.

“I didn’t get it all the first time.” Jason felt himself begin turning red. He wanted to say more, like, sorry I didn’t get it, sorry I’m stupid, sorry I didn't think anyone would care since I’m alone up here anyway. He didn't say those things, though, because he wasn't supposed to want to.

Bruce just nodded. “I’m sorry if we interrupted earlier. Dinner got a little out of hand.”

“What happened?” Jason couldn’t stop himself asking.

“Well.” Bruce sighed. “Quite a bit. But in the end, Cassandra began using her spoon as a catapult. Tim fell off his chair and hit his funny bone. And Selina gave Dick her dinner roll so he could return fire. Cassandra is now on dish duty with Alfred and I have been assigned to weed the garden tomorrow.”

“She likes helping Alfred.”

“Yes,” Bruce smiled. “It makes it very difficult to discourage bad behavior.”

“Wait, why are you in trouble?”

“It’s hard to say.” Bruce crossed one ankle over the other knee. “Maybe the garden just needs weeding.”

“Oh.” Then Jason didn’t say anything else. But Bruce didn’t say anything else either. 

Bruce looked like he wanted to, but couldn’t. Jason kept quiet, willing him to start talking. The strangled silence stretched on. Should he say something? Or pretend he needed to pee so Bruce would leave?

“I saw your father today,” Bruce said suddenly.

“What? My dad?” Jason wasn’t even sure he’d heard that correctly. Then something else occurred to him and his heart rate skyrocketed. “Is he out?”

“No. No, he’s not.”

“Then I don’t...How did you see him?”

“I drove to Blackgate this morning,” Bruce said calmly, like he said he’d gone to the corner store.

“Why?” Unconsciously, he put his hand to his chest, gently rubbing his knuckles over his sternum.

“I wanted to speak with him before you and I had this conversation.”

“I don’t understand. Jason pressed the flat of his palm into his chest, reassuring himself that it was still rising and falling as it ought to.

“Breathing okay?” Bruce asked. “We can wait and talk--”

“No,” Jason said, pulling his hand away, suddenly embarrassed. “No. I don’t want to wait.”

“Sure.” Bruce leaned forward in the chair. “Just do me a favor and---”

“I know how to use the inhaler,” Jason snapped. “What do you want?”

“I wanted to talk to your father before I asked if you wanted to stay with us for a while.”

“What?” Jason wasn’t sure he understood anything about this conversation.

“I thought,” Bruce said quietly, “that if I were in his place, I would want someone to come and talk to me. He was relieved to hear you were safe. No one had informed him of your whereabouts. He was worried.”

“Right,” Jason snorted. “I’m sure he was. He swallowed. “What did he say?”

“A lot of things I can’t repeat here.”

Jason smiled grimly. That sounded more like Willis.

“He doesn’t want you to go back into the system. And I.” Bruce cleared his throat. “I don’t want that either. I was hoping you consider staying with us. Here.”

“Why?” Jason’s voice broke a little and he looked away.

“Well.” Bruce shifted his weight in the chair. “The man your father worked for, he used to be a friend of mine. I thought he still was, and that he was a good lawyer, but he wasn’t...well.”

“Dad said he was bugfuck crazy.”

“Ah. Well. Maybe. But when the state began pursuing charges against him, back in January, I said I didn’t want him to go to jail. I wanted him to go to a hospital instead. And in the end, the only other person that was criminally liable was your father.”

”But my dad did do the stuff they said he did?” Jason looked up again.

“Yes. I believe he did.” Now Bruce looked really uncomfortable. “But if I hadn’t intervened, his plea bargain might have been less onerous.”

“What’s onerous?”

“Oh.” Bruce blinked. “It’s an adjective, that refers to how big a burden something is.”

“But even if, dad would still have gone to jail?”

“Yes. Almost certainly.”

“So I’d still be in the system.” Jason wrung his hands. “So what do you want me for.”

“No reason,” Bruce said quietly and looked away. “I mean, not for any particular reason. But I hope you’ll agree to stay anyway.” He appeared to be studying Jason’s blanket. “I would never try to replace your father. But you know, I… Alfred raised me, after my parents died. He was my guardian. It wasn’t the same. But it was better to have him.” 

“Fine,” Jason said, looking down at his hands again. “I’ll stay.” His voice was scratchy. He thought it would feel good to say yes. He wanted to stay--he really did. But he thought it would feel better than this.

“Good,” Bruce said. “Thank you.” Abruptly, he stood up.

“‘Kay.”

Bruce turned away and then turned back, looking at him oddly. Jason was suddenly sick with dread. He was going to take it back. He was going to change his mind. Right now. Right after--

“I’m very glad you’ll be living with us,” Bruce said. “I’m going to give everyone else the good news. Would you like to come?”

Jason shook his head and waited until the door was shut to burrow under his covers.

* * *

Down the hall, Bruce could hear the other children. They were in Dick’s room, probably all together on the bed. Together. And that made him wince again.

As he had turned away from Jason, Bruce had caught sight of something under the covers of Jason’s bed, something with long, floppy, lavender ears. Cass had given Jason one of her toys. And Jason was sleeping with it. Because he didn’t have anything of his own. Something in the region of Bruce’s gallbladder lurched and twisted again. 

“I’m very glad,” was what he had said. A weak sentiment, he rebuked himself. He tried to remember what Selina had been saying earlier that day, that food and shelter mattered. Maybe Jason wouldn’t like it here or maybe he wouldn’t like Bruce himself. But he would be safe.

Bruce would have to go back to FAO Schwarz. Jason liked books and whatever that space show was. He might like LEGOs. Maybe some sort of engineering kit. Certainly, Bruce should be able to find more appropriate reading material. But would Jason appreciate that? He thought not. LEGOs, then, or--

“B!” someone said.

Bruce looked up to see that he was right. Dick, Tim, and Cass were sprawled across the bed. Dick appeared to be trying to braid Cass’s hair, without much success. Tim had an open copy of  _ The Literature of Ancient Egypt _ on his lap. Cass was smiling angelically, apparently having finished her dish duty downstairs.

“B?” Bruce asked.

“That’s what we call you,” Tim said. “Uh. If you don’t mind.”

“It’s what Cass started signing you as,” Dick explained. “Father B. Because we all had other dads first.”

Tim kicked his brother and hissed something under his breath that sounded like “words mean things.”

“I like B,” Bruce said, somewhat gruffly.

_ I told you so _ , Cass signed at her brothers.

“What are you three doing?” Bruce asked.

“Hangin’,” Dick said. It was a word he could only have learned from Hal.

“May I join you?”

In response, Cass scooted over and patted an empty spot on the covers. It was almost big enough for Bruce. Almost. This was, he realized, a strategic move on her part, since she then had an excellent excuse to cling to him like a limpet. Absently, he wondered if this was a warning sign of an attachment disorder. Something to monitor. Then she squeezed him in a savage little hug and he was recalled to the present.

“Jason is going to be staying with us,” Bruce announced.

“Yessssss!” Dick said, pumping his fist like Tiger Woods.

“Really?” Tim asked, in surprise. “That’s not--I mean it’s good. I just didn’t think. It’s good.”

Cass smiled up at Bruce, her face shining. 

“There’s something else,” he heard himself say. “I. Well, we haven’t talked about it.” 

Around him on the bed, his children gazed up at him. They looked...like siblings. They all had his dark hair, but they looked more like one another than they looked like him. Or at least Bruce thought so. He didn’t ever remember being as open or innocent or...cute as they were. He should ask Alfred. Oh G-d, Alfred. The pained look on Jason’s face, when presented with an unlooked for guardian. How often had Bruce himself worn that look? Had it cut at Alfred the way it had Bruce?

Cass poked him gently in the ribs. Right. Bruce cleared his throat again. Then tried to make eye contact. Then abandoned eye contact, focusing instead on the headboard above them.

“I. Love you.”

“Oh Jesus,” came a horrified young voice from the doorway. Jason. Of course. “I just wanted a glass of water.”

“Shh,” Tim hissed.

“Come on,” Dickie added. “Let him finish.”

Cass gave him a little thumbs up, her face grave.

“That’s...all I wanted to say.” Bruce said, feeling a little like he’d just tripped and fallen into a full emesis basin on grand rounds. 

“Good work,” Tim said, and patted him gently on the knee.

“Thank you.” Bruce sighed and covered his face with his hands.

“Coulda been worse,” offered Jason, still in the doorway.

“Be nice!” Dick said.

“I was,” Jason muttered, and shuffled in the direction of the stairs.

Cass gave Bruce a quick kiss on the cheek and handed him a picture book. Then she made a little gesture with her hands, palms together, and open, like she was reading a book herself. Ah, that was his cue then. He turned it so that he could see the cover. There was a very grumpy looking black bear, with four little birds, maybe ducklings walking on his head.

“Mother Bruce,” he said aloud, and sighed. “By Ryan T. Higgins.”

Cass giggled so hard that she snorted.

* * *

“Did you know that Leslie got them a book called Mother Bruce?”

“I did,” Selina said, smiling at the memory. “I thought the illustrations were a little straightforward, but still very charming.”

“You’ve read it.”

“Yes, Dick asked if he could read it to me the other day.”

“He asked to read?” Bruce turned, his attention now fully engaged.

“Yes, between that and the farting dog books, he’s starting to enjoy himself. Of course it takes him forever because he’s always explaining the jokes.”

“Hn.”

“Bruce.” She reached out her foot and poked him gently in his firm backside. “Do I get my present now?”

“I don’t know,” he said, frowning in mock concentration. “You didn’t assist with the children-raised-by-wolves problem.”

“You only asked for my attendance,” she smirked, “not my compliance.”

“And what,” Bruce lay on his side and examined her foot more closely, raising goosebumps, “would ensure your compliance?”

“You’re a smart man,” she said, as he traced his thumb in the arch. “You’ll think of something.”

“Hm.” He leaned forward and, with no haste whatsoever, pressed a kiss to the inside of her calf, just above the ankle. This time the shiver went all the way up. “Look under your pillow, Cat.”

She rolled over, yanking her foot out of his grasp, and knelt on the bed. Under her pillow was a plain brown box, tied with twine. Selina bit her lip as she untied it, revealing plenty of protective packing around something rectangular. She took a moment to gauge its weight. Too light to be a book. An image of some kind? For a moment, she paused, rubbing her hands together with delight.

“Go on,” Bruce said, clearly amused. “It won’t bite.”

Beneath a layer of big bubble wrap was a layer of little bubble wrap and then packing paper and then fine tissue. And then… Selina turned the framed picture over and held it at arm’s distance, already gazing at it lovingly. It was, of course, a little bat. It looked like pen and ink under very well done watercolor. A little fuzzy brown creature, wings folded, ears at attention. It was a far more realistic bat than he had given her before, but there was a touch of whimsy in it. Or affection. It was familiar, somehow.

“Who’s the artist?” she asked, looking at him sharply.

“Beatrix Potter,” Bruce said.

“Shut the fuck up.” Selina gaped at him, then looked down at the little bat, then looked back at him. “No.”

“If it’s a fake, Alfred’s contact at Simon Chorley is going to be absolutely livid.”

“It’s for me?” she asked. “No, don’t answer that. I’m keeping it either way.”

“Maybe I should inspect it. For forgery reasons.” He crawled towards her.

“No!” She held it to her chest. “Don’t talk to me or my bat son ever again!”

“What?”

“Never mind,” she smiled up at him.

“You didn’t tell me you started classes,” he said, in a typical conversational u-turn.

“It’s not a big deal,” she lied, breaking eye contact to set the Potter print in a safe spot on her bedside table. He was still looking very directly at her when she turned back around.

“It’s a very big deal.” Bruce’s tone was grave. “I should take you out to dinner.”

“You should,” she agreed. “Somewhere fancy. Waiters with white gloves. I should wear something outrageous.”

“You should.”

“Hey, Bat.”

“Yes?”

“Come over here and show me how outrageous you want me to be.”

“I’ll do my best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anachronisms: Mother Bruce is a real book and it’s FANTASTIC. Highly recommended. I was almost too precious to put it in this chapter, because it’s 6 years before actual publication, but then I remembered that I don’t write AUs of superheroes for the facts. (The don’t-talk-to-me-or-my-son meme is also before its time, so what who cares, you’re not my real mom.)
> 
> The Bat Print, like so many great things, is actually at the V&A: https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1390428/side-view-of-a-bat-drawing-potter-beatrix/
> 
> My brain has been….fried since the pandemic started. My job isn’t in health care, but it’s adjacent. Wear your masks and wash your hands, please, for your doctors and nurses and respiratory therapists and CNAs and orderlies and custodians, if not for your friends and family.
> 
> I want to keep writing in this world, I think, but maybe just one shots. I have...one million head canons for it.
> 
> Anywho, comments are so appreciated I can’t even tell you.


End file.
